GOP senator: My reaction to Trump comment ‘mischaracterized’

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) says a conservative magazine incorrectly reported his take on Donald Trump’s 2005 remarks about groping women without their consent.

In a spin room interview after Sunday night’s debate, Sessions was asked by The Weekly Standard if the behavior the GOP nominee described in that audio recording constitutes sexual assault. 

{mosads}“I don’t characterize that as sexual assault,” Sessions said. “I think that’s a stretch.”

“So if you grab a woman by the genitals, that’s not sexual assault?” The Weekly Standard’s reporter asked at Washington University in St. Louis, where the second presidential debate was held.

“I don’t know,” responded Sessions, a former state and federal prosecutor in Alabama. “It’s not clear that he –- how that would occur.”

Sessions, who was the first senator to endorse Trump, issued a statement Monday taking issue with The Weekly Standard’s reporting.

“My hesitation was based solely on confusion of the contents of the 2005 tape and the hypothetical posed by the reporter, which was asked in a chaotic post-debate environment,” he said, according to USA Today.

“I regret that it resulted in an inaccurate article that misrepresented my views. Of course it is crystal clear that assault is unacceptable. I would never intentionally suggest otherwise.”

The Weekly Standard updated its Monday post to include Session’s response, though the rest of the article remains unchanged.

The Department of Justice, USA Today said Tuesday, defines sexual assault as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.”

The Weekly Standard reported a similar response from Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, and released audio of its interview with him Tuesday after he said he was misquoted. 

After Spicer’s denial, the Weekly Standard shared with The Washington Post — which had also written about his take on the Trump comment — “an audio recording of a man who clearly sounds like Spicer, in the spin room, speaking those exact words.” 

Spicer backtracked on Tuesday.

“While I was asked a question about a matter of law, it is never appropriate to touch anyone in an unwelcome matter,” he told The Washington Post.

Audio emerged last week of Trump describing how his celebrity let him “do anything” to women he approached in 2005.

“I just start kissing them,” he says as an example while talking with former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p—-. You can do anything.”

Trump has since apologized for his remarks, adding that they were “locker room talk” spoken before his entrance into politics.

Republicans have reacted with outrage, however, with some withdrawing their support for their party’s presidential nominee and others urging his exit from the 2016 race.