I remember it well. It was Oct. 7, 2016, a Friday. That afternoon The Washington Post dropped a bombshell, the perfect October surprise, just a month before the presidential election.
Earlier in the week, Hillary Clinton had been hammering Donald Trump on the news that he may not have paid taxes for 18 years.
The vice presidential candidates, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, had had a feisty debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.
It had already been a campaign full of crazy turns and fireworks, and it was about to get even crazier.
“Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005.”
In a never-heard-before recording from an “Access Hollywood” interview, Trump describes how he seduces women as a celebrity to host Billy Bush: “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … grab ‘em by the p – – – – You can do anything.”
It was mayhem after that. Was this the end of Trump’s candidacy? Dozens of Republican lawmakers called for him to drop out. The topic took up a considerable amount of attention at the next presidential debate, just two days later. Professional coaches, offended by Trump’s excuse that it was merely “locker room talk,” condemned the statement.
But while the tape certainly put Trump on defense, as we all know, the revelation that the Republican nominee for president admitted to sexually assaulting women did not derail his candidacy.
For those of us covering this, it was a low point. I remember sitting across from Jake Tapper at CNN, a friend and colleague and someone I admire and respect, and having to talk about these sordid, lewd, crass, gross comments and the sordid, lewd, crass, gross man who said them.
I felt embarrassed — I couldn’t believe that this is what we were talking about. Nowhere in my journalism career did I think I’d be discussing a presidential candidate who bragged about grabbing a woman’s genitalia.
Flash forward about nine years, and it feels like we’re in a similar place, having crossed yet another unfortunate Rubicon into the moral abyss.
Two of the major story lines in politics today involve MAGA influencers with massive platforms, who are inexplicably white-washing white supremacy and pedophilia.
If you haven’t heard, Tucker Carlson has devolved into a conspiracy-theory spouting, despot-defending, neo-Nazi protecting weirdo. He recently interviewed Nick Fuentes, a self-proclaimed Hitler lover and Holocaust denier who has said some of the most vile and disgusting things I’ve ever heard any person say ever. Carlson didn’t press Fuentes on his hideous ideas, but instead gave him a very friendly interview where the implied takeaway was, “This neo-Nazi’s not so bad!”
The fawning conversation sparked an internecine battle on the right over whether laundering the reputations of white supremacists is a good idea. Believe it or not, many are defending it. Including the president.
Enter Megyn Kelly, another Fox News washout who’s found a new pool of paid subscribers to rile up, and using all the predictable foils: Bad Bunny, Zohran Mamdani Michelle Obama, and Meghan Markle.
In addition to defending Carlson, she’s also — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — white-washing Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, too, questioning whether his preference for 15-year-old girls or “barely legal types” actually made him a pedophile.
Referring to someone who was “very close to this case,” she said “Epstein, according to his individual, was not a pedophile.”
“He wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds,” she said. “But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passer-by.”
Of course, 15 isn’t “barely legal,” it’s clearly illegal. But what point is she making in doing pedophile math other than a morally bankrupt one — that Epstein, and by extension Trump, isn’t so bad because he didn’t sexually abuse or traffic an 8-year-old girl?
The decision to protect neo-Nazis and pedophiles, just because it might benefit Trump in some way, is a precipice I never thought I’d see so-called conservatives walk up to. And yet, here they are, giddily leaping off of it.
Trump ushered in so many ugly elements, from white supremacy to rank misogyny. And the MAGA influencers who hitched their wagons to his star have to out-gross each other to prove their loyalty and keep their subscribers sufficiently radicalized.
For these unconscionable ghouls and sell-outs, nowhere is too low. Seriously, if they’re able to normalize neo-Nazis and pedophilia, what else is left?
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.