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This Trump Surrogate Had the Exact Wrong Response to a Wash U Abuse Survivor's Tearful Interview

By Vivian Kane | Politics | October 10, 2016 |

By Vivian Kane | Politics | October 10, 2016 |


By now, hopefully you’ve seen this interview with a Washington University student who tried to ask Trump surrogate Omarosa Manigault how she could support Trump’s dismissive response to questions of his attitude towards sexual assault. Throughout Sunday night’s debate, Trump repeatedly said he wanted to talk about “the issues,” rather than the leaked audio of him laying out his clear disdain for women, refusing to hear everyone trying to tell him, begging to explain, that for many, MANY women in this country (and others), these are the issues we care about.

The young woman in that video speaks about being brushed off by that Trump surrogate— whose name she couldn’t remember exactly, but within a letter or two, clearly knew to be Omarosa— who treated her history as an abuse survivor as an isolated incident to be thrown a pity party, rather than something fitting into a systemic problem, of which Trump is a very visible symbol.

When this video went viral, rather than laying low, or even taking a moment for introspection and wondering if she did this young woman a disservice in her attempt at public service, Omarosa went full psychotic offensive. Step one: Declare the upset college student a #fake because she can’t remember your name.

Never mind the fact that that sign uses those giant letters for her last name, while her Twitter account uses only her first; and given that what this young woman recalled, I’m going to guess “Omarosa” is what she went by in this room. So that “3 foot sign” isn’t really working in your favor.

Omarosa spent the rest of the night responding to hateful maniacs and retweeting dozens of attacks on this young woman. It didn’t seem to matter what the angle was, from general misogyny to intense transphobia (because bathrooms, sure)— if it supported her claim of ‘fake interview,’ she was on it.

Omarosa Manigault, you were vile enough when you condescended to this woman without actually addressing how terrified she was of Trump’s potential rise to office. But in devoting your night to convincing Twitter that she was an actor, rather than giving any weight to the possibility that she was, in fact, just a human trying to let you in on her life experiences, you have crossed the line into truly despicable human. You’re in the exact same bus as Trump— the disgusting rape culture breeding ground that is that Access Hollywood bus, to be specific.

Is this REALLY that hard to understand, that a woman can express a life experience that differs from yours without automatically being deemed a planted shill? IS IT?