In one of his early morning tweets Tuesday, the President of the United States lashed out at a sitting US senator, appeared to imply that she offered to trade sexual favors for campaign donations, and then called her “used.”
“Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!” Trump tweeted.
And yes, of course, there’s some plausible deniability there. Maybe “begging” is in quotes because the President just puts quotes around random words. Maybe when he said she “would do anything for them,” he didn’t mean the word “anything” literally.
Maybe his all-caps “USED!” meant she used the Clintons. The President is not actually renowned for his use of words (the “best words” they are not), so there’s some room for him to wiggle here.
But we all know what he meant, including Gillibrand herself, who said, “It was a sexist smear attempting to silence my voice.”
