.@HillaryClinton: Trump has "shown us who he is; let us on Tuesday show him who we are." https://t.co/DHgr3mMjLv https://t.co/HyJYT9fOVX
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 1, 2016
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton rallied supporters to rebuke Donald Trump’s “demeaning, degrading, insulting” actions toward women as she tarred her Republican rival by running through the accusations of lewd conduct against him.
{mosads}Clinton’s Tuesday rally in Florida centered largely on prosecuting the accusations against Trump — she appeared with Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe who Trump publicly criticized in 1996 when she gained weight after winning the crown.
“He thinks belittling women makes him a better man, and I don’t know there’s a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like. He doesn’t see us as full human beings with our own dreams our own purposes, our own capability, and he’s shown that clearly throughout this campaign,” Clinton said.
“He has shown us who he is. Let us this Tuesday show him who we are.”
She pointed to the laundry list of stories written about lewd comments he made on radio shock jock Howard Stern’s show long before his political career, as well as to the recently published tape from 2005 in which Trump talks about kissing and groping women without consent.
Clinton mentioned that 12 women have accused Trump of similar sexual misconduct in the wake of that video. And she also noted the allegations from former teenage pageant contestants that Trump walked into their dressing room while they were changing.
Trump has adamantly denied those accusations, framing his 2005 comments as “locker room talk” and all of the allegations part of a Clinton attack on his candidacy.
And he’s recently seized on Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State to argue Clinton is not a good role model for children.
During the Tuesday rally, Clinton sought to cast Trump as a symptom of a misguided view about the role of women and laughed while bringing up Trump’s criticism of Machado.
“Can we just stop for a minute and reflect on the absurdity of Donald Trump finding fault with Miss Universe?” she asked.
The focus on Trump’s controversial comments about women mirrors her campaign’s new advertising push in key Democratic-leaning swing states, negative spots that use Trump’s words against him.
The campaign has taken a personal turn over the past few months, with Clinton hammering this message home while Trump pushed back by pointing to rape and sexual harassment allegations against Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.