BuzzFeed reports that several years ago, the New York real estate tycoon said it was “so natural” for him to refer to O’Donnell as “he.” He had apparently slipped in trying to utter the pronoun “she,” then corrected himself, then explained without prompting that using a male pronoun in her case was appropriate. And it was all caught on video.
This happened in Toronto, in 2007, at a Learning Annex event, according to the report.
The video shows Trump listing the names of celebrities he said O’Donnell had attacked, including the co-host of “Live! With Regis and Kelly:”
“Then he attacked Kelly Ripa. And he attacked, she attacked — I guess I could say ‘he.’ It’s so natural. No, it’s so natural.”
What also came naturally during this very public feud was for Trump to attack O’Donnell where it might hurt most. In the same speech, BuzzFeed reports, Trump saw an opening “to get even” in the revelation that the comedian was suffering from depression:
“She announced last week that she suffers from depression. They called me for a comment, and rather than saying ‘I have no comment’ or ‘isn’t that too bad oh, that’s so bad,’ I said, ‘I think I can cure her depression,’ — most of you heard this. ‘If she stopped looking in the mirror, I think she’d stop being so depressed.’”
He continued, “And they said, ‘It’s a horrible statement, it’s a horrible statement.’ What’s so horrible about it? She attacks me. She said I had terrible hair. You know, it’s amazing. She calls me comb-over, she calls me — but we’re not allowed to attack.”
Trump then said that when O’Donnell was asked about his remark, she said, “I have no comment, I have no comment about him.”
“Get even,” Trump told the Toronto crowd, as the audience cheered. “When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades. I really mean it. I really mean it. You’ve got to hit people hard and it’s not so much for that person, it’s other people who watch.”
Watch an excerpt from Trump’s speech on the next page.
Trump’s most bitter remarks about O’Donnell, however, centered on her weight, which his opponent Hillary Clinton has called a common theme in the GOP candidate’s public observations about women. “The Apprentice” star said in the speech it was “politically correct bullshit” for people to not say O’Donnell was “fat.”
“This slob, now I’m not allowed to use the word fat,” Trump said. “They say, ‘he used the fat word.’ I know much worse words. It’s funny, I called her a degenerate, I called her the worst things, nobody cared.”
And that wasn’t all: “So I hit her hard, right between those ugly ffff– eyes,” he added.
“But I go on the Today Show and Meredith Vieira, ‘Donald is true?’ – this is like two weeks ago I was supposed to talking about The Apprentice. She said, ‘is it true that you called Rosie crude.’ I said, ‘no, I called her a degenerate. I didn’t call her crude, it’s not strong enough.’ She goes, ‘but did you call her fat?’ I said, ‘let me ask you a question Meredith. Is she fat?’ ‘I’d rather not comment.’ Can you believe this bullshit. This is politically correct bullshit, OK? So I had fun.”
Trump left no stone unturned in his criticism of O’Donnell during this speech, even her children. “She said her children came up to her, ‘mommy, mommy’ and you know her wife is a very beautiful woman. I go, ‘mommy, mommy he called you the ‘F’ word.’ Now, I know two ‘F’ words and one is worse than the word ‘fat.’ Now, I would never call her fat.”
Watch the entire video of Trump’s speech, via BuzzFeed, by clicking here.
