While campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Manchester, New Hampshire on Thursday, Michelle Obama delivered a powerful speech denouncing Donald Trump’s behavior and addressing the sexual assault allegations brought forth my multiple women who have encountered the presidential hopeful.
In an emotional statement that aligned Trump’s vulgar comments about grabbing women’s genitalia without consent to the sexual assault women face on a daily basis on college campuses, in the workplace or simply in public, FLOTUS condemned what Trump called “locker room banter” as “sexually predatory behavior.”
“Last week, we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexually assaulting women,” Obama said. “And I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women. And I have to tell you that I can’t stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.”
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The speech comes as more sexual assault and racism allegations dot the GOP candidates campaign. On Wednesday, old Entertainment Tonight footage resurfaced, revealing Trump making damning comments about dating a 10-year-old girl.
Calling Trump’s behavior disgraceful and intolerable, FLOTUS continued:
I feel it so personally. And I’m sure that many of you do too. Particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It is frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.
It’s like that sick sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business. Some guy yells out vulgar words about your body. Or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares just a little too long, you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. It’s that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them or forced himself on them and they’ve said no but he didn’t listen.
The human indecency of Trump’s campaign cannot be swept “under the rug as another disturbing footnote in a sad election season,” Obama said.
Watch her full speech above.