Mike Pence Says the Media Is Distracting Voters by Covering Sexual Assault Allegations Against Trump

On 'Meet the Press,' vice presidential nominee Mike Pence tells Chuck Todd that the media's coverage of Trump's sexual assault allegations is distracting.

On Sunday​, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd interviewed vice presidential nominee and Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Todd spent most of the 11-minute interview asking Pence about the last week of Trump's campaign—namely, the leaked 2005 Access Hollywood footage that showed Trump bragging about being able to commit sexual assault, and the nine women that have come forward in the following week who claim Trump sexually assaulted them.

Todd began the interview by asking for Pence to respond to Michelle Obama's emotional, galvanizing speech this week at a Clinton rally, where she argued that voters shouldn't sweep Trump's comments "under the rug."

Pence, while claiming he has the "utmost respect" for Obama, said that he has accepted Trump's apology and has moved on from the issue. Todd rightly points out that Trump hasn't moved on from the issue—despite insistence from campaign advisers that he do so—and that Trump has spent substantial time at rallies addressing the allegations.

"You've dismissed [the issue] as just talk, but we have had nine accusers that have come out since you've said it's just talk. Do you really believe it's just talk?" Todd asks.

"I really do Chuck. What we have this week is a series of unsubstantiated allegations–" Pence begins, before Todd cuts him off.

"Let me stop you there," Todd says. "They're not unsubstantiated. They're not unsubstantiated. They're firsthand accounts. They're not proven, but they're not unsubstantiated ... now, we have somebody who disagrees with that account, but they're not unsubstantiated, no?

"No, they are unsubstantiated," Pence says, arguing that the allegations are, in some cases, decades old. "Donald Trump has made it clear that he categorically denies these things ever took place ... I have to tell you it really is astonishing to most Americans that as these unsubstantiated allegations are, are treated with an enormous amount of coverage on this network and other networks that revelations coming out of Secretary of State Clinton’s years in the state department and the Clinton Foundation are virtually ignored by the national media."

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