Second gentleman Doug Emhoff did not deny allegations Friday that he “forcefully” struck an ex-girlfriend more than a decade ago following a booze-filled evening in France, instead calling the claim a “distraction.”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough asked Emhoff in a clip from an interview that will air Monday on “Morning Joe” to respond to several “tabloid stories about your personal life” — an apparent reference to recent Daily Mail reports that he slapped his former flame and hired a “trophy secretary” at his high-powered Los Angeles law firm.
“We don’t have time to be pissed off,” the second gentleman said in response. “We don’t have time to focus on it. It’s all a distraction. It’s designed to try to get us off our game.”
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, said former President Donald Trump was needlessly amplifying the stories, while making “incredibly crude and lewd” suggestions about Vice President Kamala Harris’ past.
“He’s spreading it about you,” the cable news host noted, “saying it should be front and center, he’s saying it about your wife and making incredibly crude and lewd suggestions about her past life.”
“Does it get you off your game?”
“No,” Emhoff answered. “All we are doing, all we talk about is this election. We understand the stakes. We understand the responsibility.”
Emhoff reportedly slapped his ex-lover — identified only as a well-to-do New York lawyer — so hard that she “spun around” while the couple was waiting in the valet line late at night after an event during the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.
The Daily Mail report on the incident cited three sources, two of whom heard about the apparently booze-fueled slap the same year it occurred, while another heard from the female victim in 2014.
The second gentleman has never commented to the Daily Mail about the multi-sourced report — but an Emhoff spokesperson later called the slapping story “untrue” in a statement to Semafor.
Until Friday, MSNBC had not mentioned the alleged incident, even in passing. The alleged slap also hasn’t been covered by CBS News, ABC News, Time, Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times, NPR, or the Associated Press, among other major outlets.
Harris, 59, has yet to field a question on the fiasco — though she has frequently referenced her past as a prosecutor defending women from sexual assault.
As a senator from California, Harris lambasted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and demanded her colleagues “believe women” like Christine Blasey Ford who claim they are survivors of sexual abuse, regardless of the amount or existence of supporting evidence.
Trump, 78, told Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro on Tuesday if he had been faced with the same accusations of physically abusing a former girlfriend, it would have been “the greatest story in the last five years” for legacy outlets.
“[They] were saying he’s like a symbol for all men, all over the world,” the former president groaned. “If that were me, it would be the greatest story in the last five years.”
Emhoff’s last interview was on MSNBC last month, though host Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary to President Biden, declined to bring up another other troubling allegation: That Emhoff’s first marriage ended after he knocked up his children’s nanny.
Psaki glowed while lobbing softballs at the “wife guy” who she claimed had “reshaped the perception of masculinity” during Harris’ time as vice president.
Emhoff has never denied the nanny report either, telling CNN in a statement that he and his first wife “went through some tough times on account of my actions.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.