WASHINGTON - Confronted with a videotape in which he appeared to be bragging about sexually assaulting women, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump responded by lashing out at rival Hillary Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton. He held a news conference before the debate that included women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, and then he invited them to be his guests at Sunday night second presidential debate. He spoke highly of them during in a heated debate exchange in which he accused the Clintons of far worse misdeeds than himself.
But Trump has not always spoken so favorably of the Clinton accusers. In fact, the last time they dominated the news, he described the situation as being “from hell” and the accusers as a “really unattractive group.”
“I don’t necessarily agree with his victims, his victims are terrible,” Trump said during a 1998 interview with Fox News. “He is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position.”
He went on. “The whole group, Paula Jones, Lewinsky, it’s just a really unattractive group,” he said. “I’m not just talking about physical.”
On Sunday night, while delivering an angry condemnation of the Clintons, Trump raised the late-1990s sex scandal involving then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky that led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment. But here is what he said about Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky at the time: “They’ve taken nothing and made it a big monster,” Trump said. “I mean they’ve made Watergate out of really what should’ve been nothing.”
In another interview, he called Clinton accuser Paula Jones, who was among his guests in the debate hall Sunday night, “a loser.”
