TRUMP TEASE: Six years later, we’re still talking about pee tapes

TRUMP TEASE: Six years later, we're still talking about pee tapes

In his last rally before election day, Donald Trump left his fans with a hint that he’s already scheduled his announcement of his next campaign — but neither America, nor he, has yet to recover from his previous term.

Trump, a man of grudges and grievances, has not forgotten all the ways he was offended, investigated, and affected by his first term and campaign. In fact, in that same rally speech, he also griped about having to convince his wife that the “pee tape” rumors surfacing from the Steele Dossier weren’t real (and about relying on misreporting of the tape to do so.)

Trump says that Melania believed him when he denied the story, because as a germophobe, or as Trump puts it, “a freak about germs,” he was unlikely to engage in sexual acts involving urine. Of course, the original story was not about Trump engaging in such acts — but about him paying sex workers to do so in a way orchestrated as an attack on his presidential predecessor, Barack Obama.

Perhaps he’d be equally offended to know that Bob Woodward, who has interviewed the former president extensively and recently released a series of those interviews, to Trump’s annoyance, believes that the next term, if there is one, will involve (figuratively) another bodily fluid interaction: blood oaths.

If Trump is given another chance at America, Woodward says, he’ll install in every possible position only the most devoted loyalists, resulting in an effect that will ripple through U.S. politics and policy long after Trump leaves office again.

Trump on explaining the “pee tape” story to Melania:

But she actually believed me. She said, ‘I know that’s not your thing.’ You know why? Because I’m a germ freak. She said, ‘You’re not, that’s not your thing. That’s not.’

It’s not really quite clear how the ‘pee tape’ story got turned around in the collective consciousness, from the assertion in Christopher Steele’s dossier that Trump was said to have paid sex workers to urinate on a bed where Obama had slept, into a story of him participating in urine-centric sexual acts, but if Trump had nothing to do with the misunderstanding, he seems to have at least capitalized on it, freely admitting that it’s why he was able to convince his wife it was a lie.

As much as another presidential campaign and term would ensure similar insults to the former guy’s ego, though, the consequences for America would be of longer-reaching impact.

You can see Woodward’s warning below, in which he says anyone seeking to work for the second Trump Administration is “almost going to have to take a blood oath,” reflecting and amplifying Trump’s obsession with, and demands for, loyalty in his first term.

Steph Bazzle covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph.

Stephanie Bazzle

Steph Bazzle is a news writer who covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph. Sign up for all of her stories to be delivered to your inbox here: