After the release of Trump's 2005 comments supporting sexual assault, Hillary Clinton's (now double-digit) lead over Trump grew even wider. Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from Trump—even Paul Ryan has given up on his boy. As the GOP fails to get in formation, Trump surrogates have a new strategy: Smear Hillary Clinton with Beyoncé lyrics.
Wait what? Yep, you read that right. Trump fans are trying to discredit the first female presidential candidate of a major party with lyrics from Queen's Bey's "Formation."
While on CNN with Don Lemon, Trump surrogate Betsy McCaughey had the pleasure of defending Trump's indefensible boasts about sexual assault. That's an almost impossible job. Even Trump's running mate Mike Pence admitted that he couldn't condone or defend the comments. So what strategy did McCaughey go with? She busted out Beyoncé's lyrics.
Clinton has praised Bey, who's a Clinton supporter, and said that Lemonade is "great." McCaughey, on the other hand, is no fan of Beyonce or Clinton, and she especially hates rap music.
![Image via Gage Skidmore](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 203 115"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
First, she made it clear: "I abhor lewd and bawdy language. I don’t listen to rap music. I don’t like that kind of thing... but Hillary Clinton—" Don Lemon then chimes in and wonders why McCaughey is calling out rap music. McCaughey tries to explain, saying, "I mentioned rap music because it's full of the f-word, the p-word, the b-word, the a-word, all those."
Lemon then points out that, well, those people aren't actually running for president. Then McCaughey then adds, "Hillary Clinton expresses that she finds the language on the that bus 'horrific,' but, in fact, she likes language like this." Then it gets turnt. Quoting "Formation," she says, "'I came to slay, bitch. When he F'd me good I take his ass to Red Lobster.'"
Lemon again points out that Clinton didn't say that, but rather that Beyoncé did. But McCaughey doubles down: "That [the lyrics] happens to be from Beyonce, her [Clinton's] favorite performer, whom she says she idolizes and would like to imitate." Because of that, McCaughey concludes, "There's a lot of hypocrisy in Hillary Clinton expressing such horror at the language on the bus."
There are a number of issues with McCaughey's rant. First off, it's probably not a great strategy to denounce someone as universally adored as Beyoncé is. There's also the fact that, as Lemon noted, the lyrics that have McCaughey concerned aren't from Hillary Clinton, you know, the person running for president, whereas it was the Republican presidential nominee himself who was busted for his heinous language.
But what's most important is that Beyoncé's "lewd" language is nothing like Trump's. Beyonce's lyrics empower women and talk positively about consensual sex. There's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, Trump's comments were problematic, not because he said "pussy," but because he said that famous men "can do anything" they want to women, including sexual assault.
Watch the clip below: