Vice President Joseph D. Biden Jr. on Sunday said Donald Trump suffers from an “instinctive abuse of power” and that his own words give credence to women who have accused the Republican presidential nominee of groping them.
Mr. Biden said the vast majority of men don’t share the views of Mr. Trump, who boasted in a leaked 2005 tape that his star power allowed him to do anything with women — including grabbing their private parts.
“I mean, it’s the textbook definition of sexual assault,” Mr. Biden, a Democrat, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
A growing number of women — the latest tally is nine — have accused Mr. Trump of groping them or making untoward sexual advances on them in years past.
Mr. Trump has denounced those claims as untrue, though he apologized for his 2005 remarks as “locker room talk.”
For his part, Mr. Biden said he was decent athlete in his youth, and he never heard anything that rose to the lewdness of Mr. Trump’s remarks.
“It’s just sick,” he said, arguing that Mr. Trump his leveraging his wealth and power to demean women.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday showed Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump by 4 percentage points, though a second poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal had her up by 11 points, driven by a 20-point edge among women.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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