Trump camp tested by ‘rape’ remark

Donald Trump’s campaign moved quickly Tuesday to distance the candidate from a controversial remark about rape from a top adviser.

Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump and an executive vice president of The Trump Organization, created a firestorm late Monday when disputing a decades-old accusation of rape against Trump made by his former wife, Ivana.

{mosads}“You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law,” Cohen told The Daily Beast.

Trump’s team sprang into
action, with two campaign sources telling CNN that “nobody but Mr. Trump speaks for him” and emphasizing that Cohen was employed by Trump’s company, not his campaign.

“Mr. Trump didn’t know of his comments, but disagrees with him,” a Trump spokesperson told The Hill.

Ivana Trump also issued a statement saying that “Donald and I are the best of friends,” and, “I think he would make an incredible president.”

The Daily Beast story highlighted a deposition, first revealed in a 1993 book, in which Ivana Trump reportedly said Donald Trump “raped” her, according to the Beast. She later said in a statement submitted for the book that she felt “violated.”

On Tuesday, she dismissed the Beast story as “without merit.”

The swift rebuke of Cohen — who has since apologized for his remark — and the comments from Ivana Trump helped to tamp down the controversy and showed that the campaign is adjusting to Donald Trump’s new status as the front-runner in the Republican presidential field.

Cohen’s comments presented one of the stiffest challenges yet for Trump, who has already weathered weeks of criticism for his controversial comments on “rapists” and other criminals emigrating from Mexico.

Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp lashed out at Trump Tuesday afternoon, saying the tactics used by Cohen against The Daily Beast — including a profanity-laced tirade and threats of a lawsuit — are similar to what she and other journalists have experienced.

“As appalling and unprofessional as Cohen’s threats are, they’re an accurate reflection of Trump’s own philosophy when it comes to dealing
with less-than-fawning reporters: Shut them down, by any means necessary,” Cupp wrote in a New York Daily News column.

Democrats seized on Cohen’s remarks as well, seeking to replicate their success in past election cycles at highlighting controversial comments from Republicans about rape.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a former prosecutor, tweeted that Cohen was “giving Akin a run for his money,” referring to the “legitimate rape” remark from her 2012 challenger, then-Rep. Todd Akin (R).

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) called Cohen’s remarks “a new low” in a statement early Tuesday morning that referenced previous remarks from other Republicans.

“It’s a pattern of outrageous comments that must stop, and Republicans should call it what it is — despicable,” Wasserman Schultz said.

Trump’s Twitter account, which is normally overrun with barbs leveled at his critics, was notably calmer early Tuesday as the story about Cohen’s comments blanketed the news. Early tweets included one of Aesop’s fables and comments on his poll numbers. 

Cohen, who did not return a request for comment from The Hill, issued an apology Tuesday morning, saying in a statement that nothing offended him more “than charges of rape or racism. They hit me to my core.”

He said he was surprised by The Daily Beast reporter’s “gall” in highlighting the rape accusation, saying it “truly stunned me.”

“In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment — which I do not believe — and which I apologize for entirely,” Cohen said in the statement to CNN.