‘My pain is everyday’: After Weinstein’s fall, Trump accusers wonder: Why not him?
Almost a year after New Yorker Jessica Leeds and other women stepped forward with harrowing accounts of being sexually assaulted by a powerful man, another scandal with similar elements exploded.
Only this time, the punishment was swift and devastating.
“It is hard to reconcile that Harvey Weinstein could be brought down with this, and [President] Trump just continues to be the Teflon Don,” said Leeds, who claims she was groped 30 years ago on a plane by the man whose presence she cannot escape now that he sits in the Oval Office.
In Florida, Melinda McGillivray was having much the same reaction.
“What pisses me off is that the guy is president,” McGillivray, who a year ago went public with allegations that Trump grabbed her at Mar-a-Lago in 2003 when she was 23. “It’s that simple.”
Leeds and McGillivray were among the 11 women who came forward in the 2016 campaign to accuse the then-Republican presidential candidate of unwanted touching or kissing. Trump called the charges “pure fiction” and referred to the women as “horrible, horrible liars.”
Their claims did not stop the celebrity real estate titan on his climb to the most powerful office in the world.
Since then, numerous men in high places have been felled by charges of sexual misconduct. Most notable among them were Bill O’Reilly, the star Fox News anchor who was ousted less than a year after Roger Ailes, the network’s co-founder; and Weinstein, once regarded as one of the most influential figures in the entertainment business.
The Weinstein scandal, which has featured graphic accounts of assault from a string of celebrity accusers, has sparked a national debate about sexual harassment. Many women, inspired by a #MeToo campaign, have taken to social media to tell their own stories, and calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline have risen sharply.
[#MeToo made the scale of sexual abuse go viral. But is it asking too much of survivors?]
But for Trump’s accusers, the renewed debate offers a reminder that their allegations did not have the same effect.
Trump, unlike Weinstein, was able to deflect their claims — despite the disclosure of a video in which he was heard bragging about the kind of behavior some of the women had alleged. Trump has never followed through with his vow to sue his accusers or produce the “substantial evidence” he said would refute their claims.