The release of an 11-year-old video of Republican nominee Donald Trump raised red flags for women across the country.
“This video contains graphic language” is the first thing a viewer of the recently released Trump video will see when beginning to watch the footage. The release of this 2005 video came the day before the second presidential debate.
The video contains lewd comments made by Trump about women, leaving many, including those on LSU’s campus, with a bad taste in their mouths.
“As a female, I find it incredibly degrading,” mass communication sophomore Erin Hobbs said.
“I’m not surprised something like that came out with him like that. He’s made lewd comments about women before,” political science freshman Jen Nguyen said.
“It was a little bit repulsive, but there’s more important things to worry about,” political science freshman Madeline Murphy said.
Trump defined his comments as “locker room” talk, and many of his supporters agree. However, some still think there is no excuse for the words he used.
“He wasn’t even in a locker room, but even if he was, that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to say those things,” Hobbs said.
Following the debate, Americans waited to see if Trump’s vice presidential nominee Indiana Gov. Mike Pence would respond in favor of Trump. Pence did not tweet throughout the entirety of the debate, but after Trump’s debate performance, he tweeted, “Congrats to my running mate @realDonaldTrump on big debate win! Proud to stand with you as we #MAGA.”
A recent Gallup poll shows a slight drop in Republican support, while Independent and Democratic number did not change. Many female students at LSU did not change their opinion of him either.
“When the video came out it really didn’t change my opinion on him because I already had a negative feeling against him anyways,” Nguyen said.
“I don’t really think that affects his policy as president, just his personality,” psychology freshman Angelica Frascino said.
In such an unusual election, both major candidates appear to come with some serious baggage. Each week seems to be a competition to try to uncover something worse about the other candidate in order to cover up one’s own prior mistakes.
People across the country express their discontent with the way the candidates are fighting with one another.
“I ask people to focus on the real issues and stay away from what the media says, and all of the irrelevant topics on each candidate,” Murphy said.
Both candidates continue to push forward in this election season despite the attacks from both sides of the aisle.
