JOY REID (HOST): You have the person who is really in charge of the campaign, Steve Bannon, who has his own issues and allegations made by women including his former wife about the way he treats women coming out being asked by John Harwood, or John Harwood tweeted last night, “asked if any chance Trump will quit the race: 'are you serious?'” Essentially, it seems that the men of the Trump campaign are reasserting themselves, and they're tripling down.
REBECCA TRAISTER: Well, the men of the Trump campaign are totally consistent with the remarks that we heard coming out of Donald Trump on that tape. One of the things that's interesting to me about the degree of response here and all of these Republicans suddenly distancing themselves from Trump: this is not that different from what we have seen from Donald Trump for his entire career, and for his entire time on the presidential campaign trail. The stuff about women as “pigs,” and evaluating them aesthetically, and talking about their weight gain, the stuff we were seeing with regard to Alicia Machado, not to mention the way he talks about people of color, Mexicans as rapists. This is a man -- the racism and the misogyny that this man has had on display for his entire time as a candidate, the misogyny part was made particularly explicit last night, but it is not that different from what we have been seeing from him consistently.
He has Steve Bannon. He's advised by Roger Ailes, a man who just left the Fox News network for serial harassment, sexual harassment, of his female employees. This is not that different, and I'm really struck by these Republicans who are suddenly disavowing him as if this is a particularly different sentiment. And I think it's interesting that this was something he voiced about white women. It wasn't about Alicia Machado, it wasn't about Mexicans, it wasn't about the Central Park 5 -- who yesterday he said he believed were still guilty despite DNA evidence that exonerated them, and the fact that they were jailed without having been proven guilty for all those years. No one got that upset about any of these people, but this tape, and I'm not devaluing its importance, and it's an incredible moment that was caught and published -- it's an incredible story -- but this tape is somehow thought of in a different category. Why is that? Is it because he's saying these things about a white woman?
