The Run-Up: On Sex and Power in the Campaign, From the Women Who Cover It



Photo

Billy Bush, left, and Donald J. Trump meet with the actress Arianne Zucker in a 2005 video. Audio captured by a hot microphone from the same video reveals Mr. Trump speaking in lewd terms about women.

A story from the newsroom.

My assignment this past weekend was to capture what was so uniquely abhorrent to Republican leaders about the “Access Hollywood” tape that captured Donald J. Trump bragging that he could force himself on women as he pleased because of his celebrity.

So I listened and re-listened to the denunciations of lawmakers like Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate, who both declared that their wives and sisters and daughters deserved better.

And when I started to write, I initially adopted that approach in a section of the story. Everyone had a mother, after all; many of us have sisters, too.

It took a conversation with my editor, Carolyn Ryan, to remind me why that framework was problematic. Because in it, women are defined almost entirely by their relation to men. They are in need of protection and defense by men.

It was a potent lesson about gender, language and power and this election. That’s what we talk about in the latest episode of The Run-Up: the collision of several highly gendered moments in a campaign that features the first female major party nominee, Hillary Clinton, and a man, Mr. Trump, who talks about women as no major party nominee ever has (at least in public, anyway.)

I handed the show over to three of my most esteemed colleagues: Maureen Dowd, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and the author of a new book, “The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics”; Maggie Haberman, whose reporting on Mr. Trump has been almost telepathic; and Ms. Ryan, the senior editor for politics at The Times, who oversees all of our campaign coverage.

They talk about what Mr. Trump said in that three-minute video from 2005, about how challenging it is for Mrs. Clinton to confront him given her husband’s own history and about the extraordinary scene at Sunday’s debate, when Mr. Trump brought a lineup of Mr. Clinton’s past accusers into the hall.

How do I listen? Two ways

From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above.

Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series.

On your iPhone or iPad:

1. Open your podcast app. It’s a pre-loaded app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.)

2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “The Run-Up” and select it from the list of results.

3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives.

4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode.

On your Android phone or tablet:

1. Open your podcast app. It’s a pre-loaded app called “Play Music” with an orange-and-yellow icon. (This link may help.)

2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for the name of the series and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results.

3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free.

4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode.

Continue reading the main story

On this topic: ( from category )

    Leave feedback

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    *
    *

    20 + 6 =

    Top