Backstage with 'creepy' Donald Trump and naked teenagers by Mark Sumner( Republished with permission of the Author and The Daily Kos Magazine)

Backstage with 'creepy' Donald Trump and naked teenagers by Mark Sumner( Republished with permission of the Author and The Daily Kos Magazine)

Donald Trump bragged to Howard Stern about getting close to the beautiful women in the Miss USA and Miss Universe competitions, where the contestants are as young as 18. What Trump didn’t mention was the other contest he controlled.

Four women who competed in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said Donald Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants — some as young as 15 — were changing.

I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here,’” said Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA.

Trump, she recalled, said something like, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it all before.”

Three other women, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting engulfed in a media firestorm, also remembered Trump entering the dressing room while girls were changing. Two of them said the girls rushed to cover their bodies, with one calling it “shocking” and “creepy.” The third said she was clothed and introduced herself to Trump.

The minimum age for Miss Teen USA contestants is actually 14. That didn’t stop Trump from going backstage to get a peek. Sneaking looks at young women in his contests was one of Trump’s great pleasures—one of the perks of ownership.

“I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed,” Trump told Howard Stern in recordings released Saturday by CNN. “No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. … ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”

Getting away with things because of his position is the Donald Trump theme song. Unfortunately, this was one of the rare occasions when Trump wasn't lying.

“He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked.”

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Contestants at pageants were also on the other side of Trump’s stated practice of kissing women without their permission.

The Times spoke with Temple Taggart, a 21-year-old Miss Utah, who was startled by how forward Mr. Trump was with young contestants like her in 1997, his first year as an owner of Miss USA, a branch of the beauty pageant organization. As she recalls it, he introduced himself in an unusually intimate manner.

“He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought: ‘Oh, my gosh. Gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate.’”

As part of a 2005 interview with Howard Stern, Trump was asked about the number of Miss Universe contestants he had sex with.

Artie Lang interjects from the background, "Give us the first letter of the country you had sex with."

"How many letters are there?" Trump joked. …

Co-host Robin Quivers then asked Trump if sleeping with the contestants could be construed as a conflict of interest.

"It could be a conflict of interest," Trump said. "But, you know, it's the kind of thing you worry about later, you tend to think about the conflict a little bit later on."

Tasha Dixon, one of the Miss USA contestants that Trump dropped in on while she was changing, was confident about why Trump owned the contests.

I’m telling you Donald Trump owned the pageant for the reasons to utilize his power to get around beautiful women. Who do you complain to? He owns the pageant. There’s no one to complain to. Everyone there works for him.

Trump deliberately walked in on young women ranging in age from teenagers to their early twenties so he could get a look at them naked. And he held a position of power over them, where everyone from the chaperones to the judges ultimately reported to Trump. He exploited that power, at the very least, to gawk at and to kiss contestants without their permission.

One of the other women who asked to be anonymous, who was 17, said, “At the time, you’re a teenager, you’re intimidated — it’s Donald Trump, he runs the pageant.” And it felt, she said, like “it was his given right” to enter the dressing rooms “because he owned the pageant.”

Trump certainly thought so. And it’s not as if he thought the contestants were too young to rouse his interest. In a 2006 interview, the then 60-year-old Trump revealed that age … was not a big concern to him. Or rather he revealed that hitting 35 was too old, but being too young was not a concern.

In a 2006 interview, Stern asks Trump, "Do you think you could now be banging 24-year-olds?"

"Oh, absolutely," Trump says.

"Would you do it?," asks Stern.

"I'd have no problem," Trump said.

Stern then asked Trump if he has an age limit.

"No, I have no age — I mean, I have age limit. I don't want to be like Congressman Foley, with, you know, 12-year-olds."

Nice to know that there are some limits. Although there was that one time ...

“Now, somebody who a lot of people don’t give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton,” he said. “I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’”

“Did you wanna bang her?” Stern asked.

“Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested,” Trump said, “I’ve never been into that ... but she was beautiful.”

Our lady of the pantsuit: In praise — yes, praise! — of Hillary Clinton’s style.No, I'm not literally calling Hillary Clinton a saint — but she is an icon of fearless womanhood to me by Sonia Livingston( Republished with permission of the Author and Salon Magazine in which the article first appeared .)

Our lady of the pantsuit: In praise — yes, praise! — of Hillary Clinton’s style.No, I'm not literally calling Hillary Clinton a saint — but she is an icon of fearless womanhood to me by Sonia Livingston( Republished with permission of the Author and Salon Magazine in which the article first appeared .)


(Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)



It’s time we talk about pants. Hillary’s, specifically. I’m thinking of the red pair she rocked a few nights ago at the first 2016 presidential debate. Fire Engine. Candy Apple. Crimson. Whatever you call the shade, Hillary’s pantsuit was hot—even as she remained cool in the face of the most blustery and unpredictable opposing candidate in history.


I wasn’t even finished crushing on the white suit she wore to accept her nomination at the Democratic National Convention back in July, given that all but the leanest women tend to avoid the color. Like horizontal stripes or mid-length capris. Even my mother-in-law, when discussing the convention, was surprised Hillary had chosen white.

“I know,” I smiled, thinking of all the white I’ve never worn. “And I love her for that.”

And just when I thought I could not have stronger feelings for a pantsuit, Hillary comes blazing onto the stage in red, once again obliterating the idea of looking as small as possible that dominates women’s sartorial choices, especially those in the public eye. It has been the job of women to slenderize, minimize and fade away. We veer toward narrow cuts and safe colors: navy and black and gray. Never red. Red screams I’m here. Red says I’m not backing down. Red makes the body into a beacon, and we’ve been made to fear all that largeness and reflected light. But for her first debate against Trump, with so much at stake and millions watching, Hillary chose to flare.

But even beyond the color, there’s the fact of the pants themselves. We’re getting used to Hillary’s suits, but let’s not forget that most women still wear dresses to elevate events and manage the spotlight. Accepting the nomination for president and debating her opponent is about as elevated as an event can get, and Hillary chose to wear pants. She’s been wearing pantsuits all along. Mostly they’re elegant, but sometimes they make her look stern, or their silhouettes aren’t as flattering as expected. But even as an undergraduate at Wellesley, Hillary fought for many things, including admitting more black students and adding more black studies to the curriculum, but she also battled to abolish the dress code requiring skirts in the dining hall. So you see, Hillary’s commitment to pants is solid and longstanding.

My attention to Hillary’s attire began with the display of nutcrackers for sale at Dulles airport during her 2008 presidential run. There she was, rendered in plastic, wearing a navy blue suit, campaign button on her lapel, smile painted on her face.

“Is America Ready for this Nutcracker?” The box asked.

Stainless steel thighs, it promised. Cracks toughest nuts.

My gut sank. A gag gift, yes, but with an all-too-real statement about what we think of women who try to claim power. Nutcrackers. Ballbusters. Battle-axes.

Eight years is not so long ago. The vitriol against Hillary began long before and will continue, no doubt — but even as Trump restated his view that she “doesn’t have the look” of a president, something has begun to shift. The 2016 version of the Hillary nutcracker depicts her a little fuller in the face, a bit wider in the thighs, wearing black pants and a pink blazer. Her smile is more pointed than pleasing. Her posture is commanding. Her arms have migrated from crossed over her chest to hands planted firmly on hips, giving the overall impression of someone prepared to kick ass.

The packaging has changed and I suppose I have too, because I no longer mind the nutcracker and have, in fact, become delighted by the sight of Hillary in her power pose and steel-lined thighs.

It’s crunch time, America, the new box reads.

No more nuts in the White House.

2016 or Bust.

It’s possible that I’m reading too much into nutcrackers and pantsuits. But I’m an American woman in 2016, confused by the tangle of symbols and messages, caught up in the mash of feminine ideals and realities, and I need something to cling to.

Which leads me to prayer cards. Also called holy cards, the pocket-sized devotionals feature illustrations of the saints. Catholicism, for all the negative press and gender inequality, produces as many holy cards of women as men — more if you include all the iterations of The Blessed Mother. No matter what else, a Catholic girl grows up with images of women venerated for their actions and strengths. The only catch, of course, is that the qualities they’re praised for tend to be virginity, martyrdom and self-mortification — virtues that have for too long been synonymous with what it means to be a good woman. Certainly, the female saints were bold. Certainly, they made others uncomfortable. But on holy cards, they are depicted as soft and pliable, ethereal creatures outfitted in robes of pale green, pink and blue who lift their eyes beseechingly to Heaven or lower them humbly to the ground. So that when it comes to models for those qualities I most want to develop, I find myself in need of an updated list.

I want a patron of loud talk, of speaking her mind, of taking up space. Give me a woman who climbs flagpoles, an icon with full thighs and an easy and resonant laugh. Where’s the patron of good sex, of not apologizing, of erasing from her face — at least part of the time — the sweet pink smile? How about a patron of taking charge, of wild success, of not backing down? Give me a high-flying woman who has no clue what to do with leftover chicken cacciatore. I don’t hope to become a composite of such characteristics, but neither do I any longer want to fear them.

I’ve begun to assemble my own icons; lighting candles to the teenage detective Nancy Drew and her gender-bending pal, George Fayne, making altars to Harlem Renaissance trumpeter Valaida Snow, cloaking the Victorian tightrope walker Maria Spelterini in a mantle of blue, saying novenas to Susan B. Anthony. Now I’m adding Hillary to the list. Our Lady of the Glorious Pantsuit. Light spills from her in jagged sunbursts, and a gilded nimbus encircles her scarlet suit as she stands on a slip of moon. Queen of persistence. Model of putting yourself out there, of standing your ground, of daring to flame in the spotlight.

Listen, I’m not suggesting that Hillary is a saint. Nor do I consider her Our Lady in any Marian sense. I’m only borrowing the language of veneration, and if in doing so I’m guilty of throwing too much adoration her way, so be it — because apart from physical desirability and self-sacrifice, how often do we openly adore women?

But back to the pantsuit and Hillary on stage. She looks into the camera without blinking and is listened to for what she says and not how much she pleases the eye as she says it. Vital at 68. With stamina to spare. She’s not selling her sweetness or her beauty — though in this, there is profound beauty.

Why I love Hillary is that I don’t need to like Hillary.

We women, even the most educated and progressive, still spend much energy trying to please. We almost can’t help it. We’re groomed for it from the get-go — learning to lower our voices, to put others first, to make ourselves tiny, to try for the prettiest face — until it feels as natural as breath. There’s nothing wrong with cultivating attraction, or sacrifice, or kindness. The real problem is how uncomfortable we become when someone breaks out of the mold and comes at the world with an unbroken gaze. No matter how much we embrace the concept of powerful women, in real life we aren’t always comfortable with them. They rattle subtle but ingrained expectations and threaten to undo something so embedded in the fabric of our culture we can hardly name it. We tend not to like them, even if we aren’t exactly sure why. All of which has me thinking about pants and our ongoing discomfort with a woman who wears them. Because, make no mistake about it, Hillary wears pants. Unapologetically. Literally. Symbolically. And in every other glorious sense of the word.