Trump’s female supporters explain why they stand by their man

Marianne Stearns brought her Donald Trump talking doll to the Republican's first rally since a leaked tape from 2005 emerged showing him bragging about kissing and groping women without their consent.

Standing outside the rally at Ambridge, a town near Pittsburgh, on Monday afternoon, the 61-year-old Women For Trump representative for the northern part of Allegheny pressed the Trump action figure's back. It played some of the billionaire's most famous catchphrases from his TV show, The Apprentice.

“You think you’re a good leader? I don’t,” says the Trump action figure. “Brand yourself and toot your own horn” was another of its phrases.

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives for a rally at Ambridge Area Senior High School in Pennsylvania on Monday. Photoghraph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The toy does not play Trump’s phrases from the newly-surfaced tape, such as “I moved on her like a bitch” or “grab them by the pussy” that sent his campaign into a tailspin, his poll numbers plummeting and senior Republicans running for the exit.

Like with many of Trump's inflammatory remarks of the past, his female supporters here in Beaver County in blue-collar western Pennsylvania – a stronghold of white working-class voters backing the businessman – were willing to forgive his remarks.

"I don't think it was right what he said, but again his [remarks] were words. When you look at Hillary Clinton as to what she tried to do: she tried to ruin women's lives," said Stearns in a reference to Trump's allegation that Clinton tried to smear the women who accused her husband of sexual improprieties.

“That’s why I look at the difference: those are with men and he was talking to them. If he spoke to women like that, that’s a different story.”

Trump’s lewd comments set the hostile tone for the nastiest US presidential debate of modern times on Sunday night when the Republican nominee faced off against his Democratic opponent.

The New York businessman apologised for his "locker-room talk", said he was embarrassed and then launched a vicious verbal attack on Bill Clinton – "there's never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that's been so abusive to women" – and on Hillary Clinton for "viciously" attacking his accusers.

Blistering onslaught

His debate performance, for some supporters, laid their concerns about his remarks to rest.

Shirley Sikora (47), a stay-at-home mother from just outside Pittsburgh, said she thought about taking her Trump yard-sign down after she heard his remarks on Friday but left it up after the debate.

“I think he apologised enough,” she said, standing in the Ambridge Area Senior High School. “For the first time he seemed remorseful. I think he is a grandfather now and he is not the same person.”

Kathy Weir (59), a college administrator from Pittsburgh, and her friend Maria Sekura (58), a community living specialist, dismissed his comments as historical and irrelevant to his campaign.

“I don’t care what happened in 2005,” said Weir. “They say: ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ He did something in 2005 and I know how women talk. When they are together, they do their locker-room talk too. What he said was between him and the guys.”

“I have heard worse from females so it doesn’t bother me,” said Sekura.

When he took to the stage at the Ambridge rally, Trump continued with his blistering onslaught on the Clintons, accusing Bill Clinton of being “the worst abuser of women ever to sit in the Oval Office” and attacking Hillary Clinton for systematically attacking and discrediting his accusers.

He even raised the decades-old scandal involving the late senator Ted Kennedy and the death of his passenger in a car accident at Chappaquiddick to argue that the media were covering up Clinton misdeeds.

“The hypocrites in the media don’t want to talk about what Hillary Clinton has done to these victims,” said Trump. “They don’t want to talk about what their political heroes have to women. People like Kennedy, Chappaquiddick – we remember that.”

The reality-TV star laid out his plan to respond to any further past gaffes that might emerge.

“If they want to release more tapes, saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks,” he said, implying without evidence that the Clintons were behind the leak.

It will be a bumpy four weeks until the November 8th election day.

Outside, stay-at-home mothers Jayney Pierce (46) and Amanda Innocenti (28), both carrying large Trump-Pence signs, brushed off Trump’s 11-year-old comments as they left his carnival-like rally.

“He was in the entertainment business. He wasn’t a politician,” said Innocenti of the 2005 Trump.

“Entertainment can be a filthy business,” Pierce added.