Vice President Joe Biden — a guest on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on Wednesday — responded to Donald Trump's bragging about sexually assaulting women in a video leaked last week by The Washington Post.
Biden, who authored the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, told Meyers that he found it "astounding" that the Republican presidential nominee "would acknowledge that he engaged in the textbook definition of sexual assault."
In the 2005 video, Trump tells then-"Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that he's "automatically attracted to beautiful" women. "I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait." Trump adds, "And when you’re a star, they let you do it," saying, "You can do anything."
Said Biden: "This is outrageous behavior." He noted an even more recent allegation that Trump walked in on a roomful of Miss Teen USA contestants while they were changing. "I've spent most of my career trying to figure out how to begin to change the culture in this country so that we treat women with respect and with dignity."
He quoted his father, who used to say, "The greatest sin of all is the abuse of power, and the cardinal sin of all is a man raising his hand or taking advantage of a woman."
Biden argued that Trump, in asserting that his celebrity allows him to sexually assault women, committed "the ultimate abuse of power."
The vice president said, "I don't understand how anyone can remotely justify that," adding, "I can't understand that."
Biden has previously criticized Trump for claiming veterans with PTSD "can't handle" combat, calling him "just so thoroughly, completely uninformed."
And earlier this month Biden, whose late son Beau had served in the Iraq War, asked, "Where in the hell is he from?" while giving a stump speech for Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Shares