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Trump's ‘that’s not my language’ on Epstein letter is a second language that's ‘so filthy, dirty, disgusting’

American businessman Donald Trump Belgian poses with model Ingrid Seynhaeve backstage while Jeffrey Epstein looks over his shoulder toward them at the Victorias Secret Angels party 1997
Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images

Donald Trump, Belgian model Ingrid Seynhaeve, and Jeffrey Epstein attend the Victoria's Secret “Angels” party on April 28, 1997, in New York City.

Opinion: For decades, Trump has demeaned, mocked, and objectified women in language so crude and familiar that it easily rolls off his vulgar tongue, writes John Casey.

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In my younger days, I was in 42 straight weddings, a few times as best man, but mostly as a groomsman. That came with lots of bachelor parties, which seemed to always end blurrily in a strip club, where I witnessed my fair share of lewd behavior.

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In defense of my friends — well, most of them — they weren’t so bad; however, there were some guys who were downright pigs, and when female-obsessed males find each other, we safely say that there’s a lot of “locker room talk", as Donald Trump might say.

It’s inevitable, particularly if there’s alcohol involved — although, for some guys, there doesn’t need to be — and one thing I’ve noticed after observing straight-male behavior for decades is that when caddish guys find equally caddish guys, it’s a match made in misogynist hell. They just seem to be drawn to each other, one trying to outdo the other in lewdness.

That’s why when I see that video of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, whispering to each other, laughing, leering, I know for a fact that they’re battling for who can one-up the other when it comes to being the biggest pervert.

Which is why it’s so hard for me — or anyone, really — to believe that those two weren’t joined at the hip, sharing stories — secrets — about their loutish lust for girls and women. They are sharing the kind of looks that made clear what united them most, and that is their almost obsessive tendency to objectify women.

Trump wants us to believe him when he says he didn’t write or draw the obscene letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday. This week, he brushed it off with the line, “anybody that’s covered me for a long time knows that’s not my language. It’s nonsense.”

But anyone who has covered him for a long time or simply listened to him for even five minutes knows that is a grotesque lie. This is his language. It always has been.

There’s little doubt that Trump’s relationship with Epstein was more than just golf games, charity benefits, and Epstein “stealing” Trump’s young girl employees from Mar-a-Lago— another lie.

While Epstein’s crimes are beyond repugnant and in a league of their own, Trump has spent decades on record, on camera, on radio, in print, and onstage, treating women like punch lines or POS. A jury has already found him liable for sexual assault and defamation in the case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, further proof that his pattern of behavior isn’t just rhetorical. It’s real and illegal.

The truth is, there’s a long, long list of Trump’s own words that sound exactly like the kind of vulgarity in that birthday note to Epstein.

Anyone who knows him knows that his language toward women has always been crass, cruel, and contemptuous

I decided to jot down from my memory instances where I remember Trump acting like a perverted pervert. Since I only came up with the following, I know there are countless others, both public and surely private from individuals who have witnessed Trump’s behavior personally.

Here are a few as well as some horror stories I found along the way…

In 1991, during a Howard Stern radio interview about his divorce from Ivana, Trump frothed, “A person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.”

In a 1994 Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous interview, while talking about his infant daughter Tiffany, Trump said, “She’s got her mother’s legs. We don’t know whether she’s got this part yet,” gesturing to her chest.

In roughly around 2000, Tucker Carlson, then on CNN, said something derogatory about Trump’s hair. He called Carlson and left this message: “It’s true you have better hair than I do, But I get more pussy than you do.”

In a 2004 radio interview, Trump agreed when Howard Stern referred to Ivanka as “a piece of ass,” replying, “Yeah.” He also once said of his daughter, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her,” before allowing her to sit on his lap in public appearances.

In 2004, on The Apprentice, he told a female contestant, “That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”

In 2005, Trump launched an extremely offensive assault on Rosie O’Donnell, calling her “a pig” with “a fat, ugly face of hers,” and saying she was “disgusting, both inside and out.”

That same year, he was caught on the famous Access Hollywood tape boasting, “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” in words now burned into history.

In 2006, on The View, he said this about his daughter, "If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her."

He also bragged that on The Apprentice “all of the women flirted with me, consciously or unconsciously, it’s to be expected,” and suggested female contestants “won … to a very large extent, dependent on their sex appeal.”

In 2012, he went after Arianna Huffington on Twitter, writing, “She is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision.”

In 2015, when pressed during a Republican debate by Megyn Kelly about his history of insults toward women, Trump lashed out after the fact by saying, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

In 2016, during the presidential debates, he called Hillary Clinton “such a nasty woman.”

Also in 2016, a People magazine reporter accused Trump of forcing himself on to her. He dismissed the claim by saying, “Look at her. I don’t think so.”

In the years that followed, he escalated his attacks. He said Kamala Harris was “a bum” and that she “could never be the first woman president — it would be an insult to our country.” He labeled her “very, very nasty” and “the most horrible, most disrespectful” senator. He derided Harris as “slow and lethargic,” “mentally impaired,” and even used the slur “retarded” to describe her.

He turned his insults on celebrities too. He derided Jessica Chastain as “certainly not hot,” mocked Cher for “massive plastic surgeries that didn’t work,” and said Angelina Jolie was “not a beauty by any stretch of the imagination.”

He called Sunny Hostin of The View “one dumb woman” and labeled Whoopi Goldberg “so filthy, dirty, disgusting,” ridiculing both on the basis of their appearance and demeanor. And they’re Black women, and we all know how Trump feels about them.

In 2018, at a rally, he mocked the #MeToo movement, turning it into a putrid punch line: “It’s a very scary time for young men in America.”

And this week, at the Museum of the Bible, he said that “a little fight with the wife” shouldn’t be considered a crime. He previously told a rally crowd he would “protect women whether the women like it or not.”

Notice how Trump says “the wife” and “if they like it or not.” Both are so demeaning and come from a man who is used to talking to women as if they should know their place, which is subservient to him.

This isn’t just Trump trying to be funny, which is sick in its own right. It’s a lifelong pattern for this guy. He reduces women to the shape of their bodies and size of their breasts, dismisses their intelligence, slams their achievements, and giggles in cruelty at their expense.

That is most definitely his language. It’s the language of locker rooms, of shock jocks, of degrading banter at a strip club. It’s also a very sinister language he undoubtedly shared with Epstein.

It’s equally repulsive that Trump denies writing that obscene birthday letter by insisting it’s not his style. The king of narcissists most likely truly thinks he’s a lothario like no other, the conquistador of women.

The obscenity of the letter is not some anomaly by any measure. It isn’t an outlier. It’s a reflection of the same venomous voice we’ve heard from him for more than four decades. The words belong to him because they have always belonged to him.

The obscenity of the letter is not an exception. It’s his signature.

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John Casey

John Casey is senior editor of The Advocate, writing columns about political, societal, and topical issues with leading newsmakers of the day. The columns include interviews with Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, Colman Domingo, Jennifer Coolidge, Kelly Ripa and Mark Counselos, Jamie Lee Curtis, Shirley MacLaine, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Bridget Everett, U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jamie Raskin, Ro Khanna, Maxwell Frost, Sens. Chris Murphy and John Fetterman, and presidential cabinet members Leon Panetta, John Brennan, and many others. John spent 30 years working as a PR professional on Capitol Hill, Hollywood, the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN Envoy Mike Bloomberg, Nielsen, and as media relations director with four of the largest retailers in the U.S.
John Casey is senior editor of The Advocate, writing columns about political, societal, and topical issues with leading newsmakers of the day. The columns include interviews with Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, Colman Domingo, Jennifer Coolidge, Kelly Ripa and Mark Counselos, Jamie Lee Curtis, Shirley MacLaine, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Bridget Everett, U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jamie Raskin, Ro Khanna, Maxwell Frost, Sens. Chris Murphy and John Fetterman, and presidential cabinet members Leon Panetta, John Brennan, and many others. John spent 30 years working as a PR professional on Capitol Hill, Hollywood, the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN Envoy Mike Bloomberg, Nielsen, and as media relations director with four of the largest retailers in the U.S.