A day after President Donald Trump called her out in a tweet criticized as sexually suggestive and demeaning, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., hit back in an appearance Wednesday on the “Today” show, calling Trump a “bully” and the tweet a “sexist smear.”
In Trump’s early morning tweet Tuesday, he said Gillibrand used to go to his New York office “‘begging’ for campaign contributions” and “would do anything for them.” Trump also mocked Gillibrand as a “lightweight” and “a total flunky” for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.
The White House has denied there was anything sexually inappropriate about the post.
Without mincing words, “Today” host Savannah Guthrie asked Gillibrand whether she interpreted Trump’s tweet to mean she had been willing to trade sexual favors for campaign cash.
The 51-year-old junior senator from New York nodded.
“Certainly that’s how I and many people read it,” she told Guthrie. “It was a sexist smear, intended to silence me.”
Echoing her comments to reporters Tuesday, Gillibrand accused Trump of trying to shut her down after she had called for an investigation into the multiple sexual harassment and assault allegations against him.
“He’s often berated women and made them feel that they cannot be heard as well,” Gillibrand told Guthrie. “He is a bully and he has been attacking different people across this country since becoming president.”
Gillibrand tweeted “President Trump should resign. But, of course, he won’t hold himself accountable. Therefore, Congress should investigate the multiple sexual harassment and assault allegations against him.”
Trump has vehemently denied the claims, even falsely tweeting Tuesday that they came from “women who I don’t know and/or have never met.” During his campaign, Trump threatened to sue the women who accused him of misconduct – a threat that has not materialized.
The senator cited Tuesday’s special Senate race in Alabama – in which Democrat Doug Jones pulled off an upset over Republican Roy Moore, who was dogged by numerous allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls – and the #MeToo movement as reasons Trump’s denials wouldn’t work.
“This is a moment in time, unlike any other, with the ‘Me Too’ movement. Women are feeling the ability to tell what happened to them, some of the worst moments they’ve lived, and tell it publicly, and that is powerful and it is affecting everything,” Gillibrand said. “People are looking for justice. You are seeing quick justice, whether it’s in Hollywood or in corporate America or in Congress.”
As it happens, that accountability had recently hit the set of the “Today” show.
Just a few weeks ago, a visibly upset Guthrie had to announce the abrupt firing of her former co-host, Matt Lauer, whom NBC had terminated after receiving a complaint about his inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.
As The Washington Post reported, by Tuesday afternoon six Democratic senators had called on Trump to step down, and more than 100 House Democrats had signed onto a letter calling for a congressional investigation.
On Tuesday, Trump ignored reporters when asked to clarify his tweet. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed the characterization of Trump’s tweet as sexually suggestive, telling reporters that “there’s no way this is sexist at all” and later adding: “I think only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way.”
Sanders said Trump was trying to make a point about the corrosive nature of money in politics and characterized Gillibrand as “a wholly owned subsidiary of people who donate to her campaign.”
“He’s used that same terminology many times in reference to men,” Sanders said of the language in Trump’s tweet.
The Washington Post’s John Wagner, Ed O’Keefe and Ashley Parker contributed to this report.
