With less than two hours to go before the second presidential debate, Donald Trump filmed a surprise Facebook Live with a panel of women whose names come up when you google “Clinton + sex assault.” The brief, curious video was posted online under the inauspicious title, “Debate Prep.”
Trump, seated at a dais with a panel of four women—Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Wiley, and Kathy Shelton—didn’t say much in the three-minute video.
“I’m here to support Mr. Trump because he’s going to make America great again,” Jones, wearing a hat and layered sweatshirts, explained. “And I think everybody else should vote for him. And I think they should all look at the fact that um, he’s a good person who is not um what other people have said he’s been, like Hillary. So, think about that.”
(It seems Trump’s opinion of Jones changed dramatically in recent years—in 1998 he called her a “loser” and told Howard Stern in 2002 that she was “not very talented” in a celebrity boxing match, noting, “It’s too bad she didn’t run like that from Bill.”)
When a reporter asked Trump why he touched women without their consent, Jones who sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment and helped expose his affair with Monica Lewinsky, responded sharply.
“Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that? Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that?” she said. “Go ahead, ask Hillary as well.”
Kathy Shelton, who says Hillary Clinton mishandled her rape case, said she supports Trump because of statements Clinton made.
“At 12 years old, Hillary put me through something that you would never put a 12-year-old through, and she says she’s for women and children, and she was asked last year what happened, and she said she’s supposed to defend whether they did it or not. Now she’s laughing on tape saying she knows they did it.”
Broaddrick also framed her support for Trump in her opposition to the Clintons.
“I tweeted recently and Mr. Trump retweeted it, that actions speak louder than words. Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me,” Broaddrick said. “I don’t think there’s any comparison.”
“I am here to support Donald Trump. The reason for that is the first day that he announced for president, he said I love this country and I want America to be great again. And I cried when he said that, because I think this is the greatest country in the world,” said Wiley.
Trump did not take any questions.