Donald Trump Doesn't Care About Republicans' "Family Values"
Trump has been divorced–twice.
Donald Trump has been through 3 marriages and 2 very public divorces. Divorce is very common in our current culture, but we generally hold our presidents to a higher standard. (It's worth noting that divorce is technically prohibited in the Bible). In fact, he is only our second ever president to have been divorced.
Trump publicly cheated on his first wife.
The infamous New York Post headline "Marla boasts to her pals about Donald: 'Best sex I've ever had'" released in 1990.New York Post
Trump's marriage to his first wife, Ivana, fell apart when he began an affair with the model Marla Maples, which dominated the tabloids in the early 1990s. His very public affair even affected his children. "The children are all wrecks," Ivana told gossip columnist Liz Smith. "Ivanka now comes home from school crying, 'Mommy, does it mean I'm not going to be Ivanka Trump anymore?' Little Eric asks me, 'Is it true you are going away and not coming back?'"
Marital fidelity has always been a joke to Donald Trump. In a 1993 interview, Trump and Howard Stern engaged in a conversation about fidelity in marriage, with Stern relaying how Trump was shocked when he told him that he doesn't cheat on his wife. Stern said, "Donald asked me during the commercials — and I don't think you mind me saying it—he says to me, 'So you don't get it on with anybody? I said 'I'm really faithful to my wife' and he goes 'you're kidding? Really? What's that all about?'"
Trump had a child out of wedlock.
Even after his divorce was finalized in 1991, Trump chose not to make an "honest woman" out of his mistress Maples. A spokesperson, who many believe was actually Trump himself, told a People reporter that Trump would never marry Maples, and that he had "three other girlfriends" at the time.
So it's not particularly shocking that when Marla Maples announced to Trump that she was pregnant with Tiffany, his first words to her–as repeated by him on The Howard Stern Show in 2003–were "What are we going to do about this?" Yet despite Trump's possible insinuation that she should abort the child, in 1993 Maples gave birth to Trump's fourth child, born out of wedlock. Shortly after her birth, Maples and Trump finally married, but the marriage was short-lived.
Trump's current marriage is filled with scandal.
The divorce with Maples wasn't finalized until 1999, so Trump was still technically married when he met his next wife, Melania Knauss. The pair met at a party in 1998 and Trump was on a date but, as he recalled later, he was immediately drawn to his future wife, if not immediately in love. "I went crazy. I was actually supposed to meet somebody else," Trump recalled to Larry King on CNN in 2005 shortly after the pair were married. His marriage to Melania has been his longest, but it hasn't been without scandal. He has been accused of having multiple affairs throughout. The most credible allegations include an affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal in June 2006 and another with adult film star Stormy Daniels in July 2006. Both of these affairs allegedly took place only months after the birth of his fifth child, Barron Trump. Trump has denied both allegations, but the latter scandal made headlines when in 2018, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Stormy Daniels received $130,000 for signing a non-disclosure agreement just before the 2016 presidential election about her alleged affair with Trump.
Trump is an absent father.
The Trump familyCBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Trump has 5 kids from his three wives, but wasn't involved much in their upbringing. His first three children were raised mostly by nannies and bodyguards. Don Jr. refers to his nanny as "the woman who raised us" and Eric Trump, the youngest of the three, claims that in a way he was really raised by his brother Don Jr. His fourth child, Tiffany, wasn't raised by Trump at all, but thousands of miles away in Los Angeles with her mother Marla Maples. Trump has openly expressed that he has no interest in the child-rearing aspects of being a father. On the Howard Stern show in 2005, he stated, "I mean, I won't do anything to take care of them... It's not like I'm gonna be walking the kids down Central Park."
Trump speaks very crudely about women.
In September 2005, Trump was caught on tape telling "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that he was able to "grab" women "by the p---y" because "when you're a star they let you do it." On the tape Trump also talks about actively pursuing a married woman. "I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there. And she was married." The tape was recorded just a few months after Melania and Trump were married. While Trump claims that this was simply locker room banter and not proof that he was actively cheating on his new wife, it is certainly not the kind of rhetoric you want to hear from any newlywed father of four, let alone a President.
Trump sexualized his own daughters.
Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, in 1996.
Brian Smith
One of Trump's most notorious quotes about his beautiful and refined daughter Ivanka is that "if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her." Ivanka was 24 at the time and Trump was 60. But that isn't the only time he has sexualized his daughter. In another interview with Howard Stern in 2003, Trump said his daughter had "the best body." In yet another chat, Trump gave Stern the okay to call Ivanka a "piece of ass." He even sexualized his daughter Tiffany when she was an infant. "I think that she's got a lot of Marla, she's really a beautiful baby," Trump said. "She's got Marla's legs. We don't know whether or not she's got this part yet but time will tell," he added, holding his hands in front of his chest to represent breasts. Because who doesn't want to talk about their infant daughter's future breasts?
Donald Trump is not a family values candidate. His history shows that he has no respect for the institution of family—except when it serves him and his business. Trump doesn't care about the things that make the Republican Party great.
But don't take my word for it. Real Republicans, the ones who care about family values, agree with me:
Republican voters against Trump https://rvat.org/
The Lincoln Project https://lincolnproject.us/
The Bravery Project https://thebraveryproject.com/
Reclaim Our Party https://www.reclaimourparty.org/
Christians Against Trumpism https://christiansagainsttrumpism.com/
43 Alumni For Joe Biden https://43alumniforjoebiden.com/
Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform https://repair45.org/
Republicans for Rule of law https://www.ruleoflawrepublicans.com/
Former Republican National Security Officials for Biden https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/national-security/
Cindy Hyde-Smith: First Female Mississippi Senator, Segregation-Enthusiast
In the last Senate race to be called, Mississippi has elected its first female Senator. Cindy Hyde-Smith will hold one of the Republicans' 53 seats to Democrats' 47 seats, setting a new record of 24 women in the Senate next year. However, the victory as a mark of social progress is tainted due to Hyde-Smith's history of racially-charged comments and sheltered background.
Leading up to the election, Hyde-Smith received backlash over a video of her joking with a supporter that if she were invited to a "public hanging," she'd be in "the front row." Following public outcry, she released an apology, stating, "For anyone who was offended by my comment, I certainly apologize."
New York Post
At the same time, however, she dismissed the criticism as "ridiculous." Claiming that she possessed no ill intentions, she framed the comment as nothing more than banter with a supporter, stating, "In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous."
The conservative Senator has the public divided over whether Mississippi is heading towards a more inclusive future or embracing a troubled past. Hyde-Smith's "public hanging" comments evoke the state's ignominious history of mob lynchings, Jim Crow, and legally-enforced segregation. On Friday, the Jackson Free-Press uncovered that the 59-year-old graduated from a southern private school established in the '70s to eschew desegregation orders after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.
Mississippi has been criticized for allowing segregated private schools as recently as 2017. Hyde-Smith's alma mater, Lawrence County Academy, hosted a mascot dressed as a Confederate general and displayed a Confederate flag. The Senator elected to send her daughter to a similar "segregation academy."
CNN also looked into Hyde-Smith's past and reported that she's advocated a revisionist view of the Civil War and backed a measure to honor a Confederate soldier's efforts to "defend his homeland." Additionally, the Senator's Facebook page displays pictures from 2014 in which she's posing with Confederate artifacts during a visit to Beauvoir, the hometown of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The photo's caption reads, "Mississippi history at its best!"
Democracy Now!
On Tuesday, Hyde-Smith credited her win to the state's dedication to "conservative values." In her victory speech, she said, "The reason we won is because Mississippians know me and they know my heart. This win tonight, this victory, it's about our conservative values, it's about the things that mean the most to all of us Mississippians: our faith, our family."
Hyde-Smith received her strongest support from Mississippi's rural and predominantly white counties, according to The New York Times. CNN also attributed the win to Donald Trump's last-minute trips to the state. During a Monday night rally in Biloxi, Trump told the crowd, "She is respected by all. Some long-term senators, they've been down there, they told me, this is a woman that gets it. She's smart, she's tough, and she loves you." He went on, "She produces like few produce. This is a very, very special person."
After a race that was closer than anticipated, Democrat Mike Espy conceded to Hyde-Smith on Tuesday. He offered hopeful regards to the new Senator, stating, "[She] has my prayers as she goes to Washington to unite a very divided Mississippi."
Los Angeles Times
Meg Hanson is a Brooklyn-based writer, teacher, and jaywalker. Find Meg at her website and on Twitter @megsoyung.
