John Kasich says it’s time to stop reporting about Donald Trump’s ex-wife’s decades-old, but since retracted assertion that he raped her — and a Trump aide’s controversial remarks about that claim.
“Just leave him alone,” the Ohio governor and Republican presidential contender said in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“Maybe the nature of the beast ought to change a little bit. You know, there are limits here,” Kasich said. “I’m sure that it is extremely painful for him, for his former wife, for his kids, and that shouldn’t be what we’re doing in this business.”
Trump adviser Michael Cohen apologized Tuesday for his comments to The Daily Beast in which he inaccurately asserted that raping one’s spouse is not illegal, and threatened to sue a reporter for pursuing a story about Ivana Trump’s early-1990s rape accusation.
Trump distanced himself Tuesday from the comments.
“He’s speaking for himself. He’s not speaking for me, obviously,” Trump said to CNN’s Don Lemon Tuesday, which aired on “The Situation Room.”
Trump called The Daily Beast a “joke” desperate to remain relevant.
“Michael was extremely angry because he knew (the alleged incident) never took place,” Trump told Lemon.
Marital rape has been illegal in all 50 states since 1993 and non-consensual sex between spouses does in fact constitute rape, said Scott Berkowitz, the president and founder of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.