The Beeb vs The Donald

While tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected in central London to protest Donald Trump’s visit this week, the BBC too is laying out its own welcome mat. Its most important current affairs programme, Panorama, tonight broadcasts a film titled ‘Trump: Is the President a Sex Pest?’ The Panorama website says: “Donald Trump has been accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour by more than 20 women, but he has dismissed them all as liars. Now one of those women is suing him for defamation. An American court will have to decide what really happened and whether the President of the United States is a sexual predator.”

Trump doesn’t care much about protesters. As Freddy Gray argues, he probably delights in this kind of bien pensant virtue signalling. “So why play into his notoriously small hands?” On the other, small hand, he is said to be extremely thin skinned about media coverage. The President doesn’t like Aunty any more than he likes CNN. The BBC? “Another beauty,” he once said at a news conference. And despite his skirt-chasing-couldn’t-give-a-damn image, Trump has always gone to great lengths to cover up his sexual indiscretions. His personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was used to pay off and shut up a long line of models, porn stars, party girls, reality TV show contestants, and others. Some of these women accuse him of forcible kissing, groping, or other sexual assault. As Panorama says, the count of women making these claims is up to 20, so far.

There are also claims of abortions. A forthcoming book, Everything Trump Touches Dies, by the Republican political consultant Rick Wilson, quotes a close friend of Trump’s. “The last conversation Trump ever has with one of his girls is when she calls and says, ‘Don, I’m late.’ Or when he gets bored with her. At that point, Cohen and his people take over. NDA, payout, go away. It’s all in Cohen’s office. He can’t have that come out.” A significant part of Trump’s support comes from evangelicals, who so far have been turning the other cheek to a series of “bimbo eruptions” that began before the election. Whether they can ignore abortions and sexual assault – if proven – is another matter.

Meanwhile, the British government is desperately hoping that Trump will play Special Relationship nice in the coming days. None of this will be helped by the protests, or by mention of what President Pussygrabber may have done with assorted women, willing or unwilling.