For the Record: Everything is false and nothing is real, Trump says

Despite the 2005 video in which Donald Trump bragged about groping and kissing women without their consent, Trump spent Thursday denying the accounts of women who said he groped or kissed them without their consent.

After two women told their stories in a New York Times article Wednesday, Trump’s attorney threatened a lawsuit, calling the story libelous. The Times’ response on Thursday? Bring it.

"Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women. He has bragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms. He acquiesced to a radio hosts’ request to discuss Mr. Trump’s own daughter as a ‘piece of ass,’” David McCraw, the newspaper’s attorney, said in a letter.

He concluded: “Nothing in our article has the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.”

Twenty-four more days, people. We’ll get through this.

It’s For the Record, the politics newsletter from Paste BN.

Trump: It wasn’t me

Trump’s campaign borrowed one of Trump’s debate tactics Thursday, flatly declaring that each of the growing number of women who’ve alleged he assaulted, abused or harassed them is wrong.

Or, in Trump’s parlance, “WRONG!”

The People magazine reporter who said Trump pushed her against a wall and shoved his tongue down her mouth in 2005? Wrong, Trump claimed.

The woman in the Times who described Trump putting his hand up her skirt on a flight 30 years ago and the other who said he gave her an unwanted kiss in 2005? Also wrong, Trump said.

(Here’s a rundown of many of the accusations.)

"They're pure fiction and they're outright lies," Trump said Thursday at a Florida rally, most of which he spent denying the “false attacks” against him.

“These people are horrible people,” Trump said. “They’re horrible, horrible liars.”

And it’s not just the sexual assault accusations that are false, Trump’s campaign said. An interview he reportedly did with some Serbian magazine was also “a hoax,” too, Trump’s people said, in case you were wondering.

Republicans, Democrats, pretty much anyone besides Trump supporters: Oh, no

A collective sigh emanated from both sides of the aisle as reports on Trump’s accusers dropped one by one. Democrats pounced. Republicans fretted. Independents wondered what bleak hellscape awaits us come Nov. 9.

Michelle Obama, speaking at a Clinton rally in New Hampshire on Thursday, addressed the Trump tape directly.

"I can't stop thinking about this,” she said. “It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn't have predicted."

Newt Gingrich, a vocal Trump supporter, told the candidate to grow up and stop the GOP infighting that’s stemmed from last weekend’s video.

“There’s a big Trump and a little Trump,” Gingrich said Thursday on Fox Business. “The little Trump is frankly pathetic. I mean, he’s mad over not getting a phone call?”

Ed Huggard, a 68-year-old Republican voter, considered treason as he attended a Clinton rally.

“I’m in fear for my party,” Huggard, a retired postal worker and veteran, said outside the event Thursday. “A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote against Donald Trump.”

For her part, Clinton joked about Trump’s troubles using — what else? — a painfully forced millennial reference.

“Now it makes you want to turn off the news,” she said at fundraiser in San Francisco. “It makes you want to unplug the Internet. Or just look at cat GIFs.”

Look, we at For the Record don’t issue editorials, but we offer this since plea: Hillary Clinton, if elected, must stop making painful millennial references. No cat .gifs. No Pokémon Go. No “chilling in Cedar Rapids.” For the sake of millennials’ faith in our democracy, Sec. Clinton, we beseech you: stop.

Around the campaign trail

• Clinton leads poll in North Carolina following tape release (Paste BN)
• For a Republican, Trump’s lead in Utah is historically small (Asbury Park Press)
• Trump guy Rudy Giuliani apologizes for false claim on Clinton (Paste BN)
• We’re scurred: Trump would threaten press freedom, pro-journalism group says (Paste BN)

Trick or treat, smell my feet, what steps would your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?

We knew it would come to this: A sexy Ken Bone costume. Well done, America. Hope you’re proud of yourself.