Former US Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos is suing Donald Trump for defamation it was announced today (18th January). Whilst the impact may be minimal now that Trump has been elected President, the issue is that this is not the first problem to arise from something Trump has said or done.
What exactly happened?
Let us investigate exactly what happened first of all. Summer Zervos claimed that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her almost ten years ago after appearing in the Apprentice show in 2005. The Guardian newspaper wrote that Trump "groped and aggressively kissed" her.
Zervos herself stated that Trump greeted her by "kissing me open mouthed as he was pulling me toward him" as reported in the Telegraph newspaper. However, what was even worse than this was the reaction by Trump to the allegations made against him. The Guardian reported that he accused Zervos of fabricating "phoney", "100 %", "outright lies" for political and monetary gain. However the suit against the President-elect stated that in order to cover up his lies, Trump "lied again".
Comments and actions against others
The problem with this incident, however bad it is, is the fact that this is not the first time Trump has erred in his ways or said something inappropriate towards those around him. With regards to women, there are many examples.
The Telegraph reported that there have been an increasing number of sexual assault claims made by women, dating as far back as the 1980s; all of which have been denied by Trump. However, even worse, are the lewd comments made by Trump towards women as reported in the Independent newspaper. In 2006, Trump stated that "Rosie O'Donnell is disgusting-both inside and out".
In October 2007 Trump said to Larry King about Angelina Jolie that "I'm not saying she's an unattractive women, but she's not beauty, by any stretch of the imagination". And in April 2015 Trump said about Huffington Post editor Adrianna Huffington that "she is a dog who wrongfully comments on me". There are also examples of comments made to certain religions.
According to the Guardian newspaper, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown" of the country's borders to Muslims. Even towards Mexicans, the President-elect called for the building of a wall to separate the two countries.
The need to change
What is clear is that Donald Trump has offended a number of different people and sects. But he cannot continue in this vein as President. The problem is that he will have enough enemies without offending people for the sake of it. He is soon to become the leader of the free world and arguably the most powerful person on the planet. He has to include and not alienate. If he does the latter, he will find being President a whole lot harder than it really needs to be.
