Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley accused Donald Trump of engaging in “super predator braggadocio” Sunday night, after a video surfaced Friday of Trump talking about women in a crude and sexually aggressive manner.
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper how Hillary Clinton should respond to Trump’s comments, the former primary opponent of the Democratic presidential nominee said that Clinton is a person “who certainly does not retire or back away from this sort of disgusting behavior, this super predator braggadocio.”
His use of the phrase “super predator” recalls a time when Clinton came under fire earlier in the campaign for using the term in the 1990s to describe some youthful criminals. Now, some Democrats are leveling the same charge at Trump.
“This is a watershed moment for Republicans across the country,” O’Malley told Tapper. “Any Republican that fails to repudiate Donald Trump’s super predator braggadocio is not going to have a future in the new Republican Party.”
Democrat Van Jones also leveled the charge while condemning Trump’s behavior, calling the Republican nominee “a sexual predator” and a “super predator” to deflect attention from his own remarks.
“What he has actually confessed to, not been accused of but confessed to, is a crime,” Jones, a CNN political commentator, said Sunday. “He came to prominence by attacking immigrant Mexicans and saying they are rapists. It turns out it was all projection. He’s a sexual predator, he’s a super predator and he can not attack Bill Clinton to get out of it.”
Hillary Clinton was confronted about her use of the term “super predators” during the Democratic primary by an activist who asked whether Clinton would apologize to African-Americans for supporting policies that had negatively impacted the black community.
In her 1996 speech, Clinton referred to some young offenders as “super predators” who “must be brought to heel” by law enforcement. Democratic rival Bernie Sanders seized on the remarks, calling the term racist. Clinton apologized earlier this year, saying she shouldn’t have used the phrase and wouldn’t do so today.
Trump has also pointed to Clinton’s use of “super predator” in an attempt to damage Clinton with African-Americans. During the first presidential debate, he invoked her use of the term, calling it a “terrible thing to say.”
In August, Trump tweeted an Instagram video that included footage of the comments, as well as a clip of Sanders condemning it at the final Democratic debate.
Trump circulated the video to his followers with a tweet calling the Clintons “the real predators.”
