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Bloomberg

Just 90 minutes before the biggest moment of his political life, Donald Trump showed no sign of contrition as he held an impromptu press conference with the most prominent accusers in Bill Clinton’s past with women.
Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Kathy Shelton and Paula Jones huddled at the Four Seasons in St Louis just a short drive from the debate stage in St. Louis with his presidential campaign in crisis and his party in open rebellion against him.
“Bill Clinton raped me,” Broaddrick said. 
Clinton has long denied the accusations, and there never was any legal action in the case.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for Trump or the party after the release of a video in which he talks about women in vulgar and degrading terms. That triggered a rush of Republican officeholders to distance themselves from him or call for his exit from the race for the White House. 
Why removing Trump from the presidential ballot isn’t that simple
The debate at Washington University, which starts at 9am Monday Hong Kong time time, has some party leaders worried Trump will make matters worse by attacking Democrat Hillary Clinton through the infidelities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Even if Trump offers contrition, many political strategists have concluded he is too damaged to rebound.
“It’s over,” said Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist and senior adviser to the party’s 2008 nominee, Senator John McCain. “This is not recoverable. This debate has every likelihood of being a fiasco.”
Schmidt predicted the crisis will prompt Trump to bring up the former president’s indiscretions, something the billionaire businessman had threatened to do after the first debate and then backed away from.
“It is a certainty that Trump will go down the only path that exists for him, which is try to frame this as a double-standard issue with regard to Bill Clinton,” Schmidt said.
Defiant Trump vows to stay in race after dozens of top Republicans demand he drop out after lewd remarks
Schmidt’s old boss, McCain, became the most prominent Republican yet to withdraw support for Trump over the weekend, saying in a statement Saturday that it had become “impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.”
Trump still has his Republican defenders, and on the Sunday morning round of political talk shows they were represented by Rudy Giuliani. The former New York mayor told ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that Trump’s comments were “reprehensible.” But he invoked the Catholic concept of absolution from sin, and sought to draw a line under the controversy: “That was then, and this is now.”
A survey conducted Saturday by Politico and Morning Consult found that 74 per cent of Republican voters thought the party should continue to back Trump, even after the tape’s release. But pollsters for CBS News, who had been surveying the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania just prior to the scandal, called some of those voters back on Friday night and Saturday and found that eight in 10 had seen or heard of the video. Almost half said it made them think worse of Trump, although those responders mostly weren’t backing the Republican anyway.
President Barack Obama weighed in on Trump’s remarks in an appearance on Sunday afternoon while pointedly avoiding the most offensive words. “I don’t need to repeat it; there are children in the room,” Obama said, speaking in Chicago at a fundraiser for Representative Tammy Duckworth’s Senate bid.  He said the comments fitted a pattern in which Trump has also demeaned minorities, immigrants, people of different religions and the disabled during the campaign.
After the video’s release on Friday, CNN also uncovered audio of Trump talking with radio shock-jock Howard Stern in which the two men engaged in lewd conversations about women, including Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.
With less than a month before the election, the timing of the video’s release could hardly be worse for Trump and the Republican Party. Ballots are already being cast via early and absentee voting in some states. The impact threatens the party’s hold on the Senate and potentially the House.
Even before the latest Trump controversy, recent polls showed Clinton widening her lead nationally, and in key states such as Ohio that Trump probably needs to win.


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US election: Trump v Clinton

In pre-debate bombshell, Trump holds event with women who accuse Bill Clinton of rape and other misdeeds

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sits with (from left) Juanita Broaddrick, Kathy Shelton and Paula Jones in St Louis, Missouri. The women have all accused Bill Clinton of various sexual misdeeds. Photo: Reuters

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on as Juanita Broaddrick, who has accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault, speaks before the second presidential debate against democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

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