A Television Character

Welcome to a new installment here at Things Everyone Knows, a little thing we like to call The Trump Campaign Lies About Everything and Knows You Won't Care.

On Fox News today, Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson dismissed concerns that the recent Our Principles PAC ad would hurt Trump with voters.  This is the ad in which several women read aloud some of the truly loathsome things Trump has said about women over the years.  Why is Pierson unconcerned?  Because according to her, "A lot of those statements is what Mr. Trump made as a 'television character'".

Now if Ms. Pierson's statement were true, this would effectively exonerate Trump.  For example, I don't hold it against Anthony Hopkins that he played the role of a cannibal in Silence of the Lambs.  However, I'm not aware that Mr. Trump has ever had a significant acting role in a TV series.  To my knowledge, the only 'television character' he's ever played is that of Donald Trump, on the 'reality' TV series The Apprentice --- although IMDB does show he's made a half-dozen cameo appearances on series such as The Jeffersons, The Nanny, and Sex and the City.

If any of the quotes in the Our Principles PAC came from those sitcoms, then I agree Trump should get a pass.  But if they came from The Apprentice?  Um, no, just because you appear on TV doesn't allow you to avoid responsibility for any nasty thing you decide to say then.  Sorry.

But do any of those quotes even come from The Apprentice?  If you've considered any of Trump's public statements critically, you should expect that none of them do.  And because I love researching stuff like this, I tracked down all of the full quotes presented in the ad, to find out when Trump said them.  They are:

1. "A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10."
2. "Look at that face.  Would anyone vote for that?"
3. "She had the height, she had the beauty.  She was crazy, but these are minor details."
4. "I like kids.  I mean, I won't do anything to take care of them.  I'll supply funds, and she'll take care of the kids."
5. "You know it really doesn't matter what they write, as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass."
6. "That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees."
7. "There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her --- wherever."
8. "Women, you have to treat them like shit."

According to Buzzfeed, quotes 1, 3, 4 came from interviews Trump did on The Howard Stern show.  I guess Pierson would claim he was a 'radio character' for these.  Number 2 was a comment Trump made about his opponent for the Republican nomination, Carly Fiorina, before she dropped out of the race.  Number 5 comes from a 1991 interview Trump gave to Esquire.

Number 6 actually does come from an episode of The Apprentice.

Number 7 was famously Trump's opening salvo in his ongoing feud with Megyn Kelly, after she hurt his feelings in the first GOP debate by actually asking him hard questions.  Ironically, it seems that the thing which most upset Trump about Kelly's questions is that she challenged him about his history of offensive comments about women.

Finally, according to the Daily Beast, the final Trump statement referenced in the ad comes from an interview Trump gave to New York magazine in 1992.

So let's see . . . Pierson claimed that 'a lot' of these statements were made when Trump was acting as a 'television character', even though The Apprentice is a 'reality' TV show, presumably starring the 'real' Donald Trump.  And even though only one statement out of 8 was actually made on that show.  And, it seems, not one of them was made on The Nanny or similar sitcom.

Reasonable people might conclude that Pierson is lying, knowing that you won't care.  But perhaps we should give her a pass on this one.  After all, she did say these things on the Fox TV network --- perhaps Pierson just made this statement as a 'television character'.