NewsBusters Editor at Large Brent Baker caught this moment on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. New York Times opinion writer Michelle Cottle energetically stretched the Cornell fraternity rape case to somehow be about President Trump and his anti-women ways:
“We can go to the President for this one.” On @ThisWeekABC, @mcottle of NY Times blames Trump for Cornell incident: “You can’t send those messages, no matter how drunk you are as a frat boy, without having some kind of misunderstanding about what women are there for and whether this is a real person you’re dealing with. And that, I think starts, you know, we can go to the President for this one. I mean, we are in a moment in this culture where the glorification of being thuggish and swaggering and mistreating women is kind of making you a cool kid.”
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) October 4, 2026
COTTLE: It goes beyond the systems, though. What this is, is it's a fundamental disrespect for women. You can't send those messages no matter how drunk you are as a frat boy without having some kind of misunderstanding about what women are there for and whether this is a real person you're dealing with.
And that, I think, starts, you know, we can go to the president for this one. I mean, we are in a moment in this culture where the glorification of being thuggish and swaggering and mistreating women is kind of making you a cool kid.
Former GOP governor Chris Christie didn't push back on Cottle. He just found something "more fundamental."
CHRISTIE: I think Michelle is going to get something that's much deeper, more fundamental that goes back. And I am sure that the parents of these young men are appalled by the fact -- at least I hope they are -- that their sons got engaged in this kind of conduct.
Any Republican could push back on Cottle and point out that this alleged rape occurred in 2024, when Biden was president -- or they could suggest Bill Clinton was often accused of sexual assault. George Stephanopoulos probably wouldn't allow that spin. It could end your appearances on his roundtable. In a January opinion piece, Cottle performed the usual Democrat exercise on the topic:
“But what about Bill Clinton!” has for too long been the G.O.P.’s stock answer when a sex scandal rocks its ranks. Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly brandished Mr. Clinton’s sexual misconduct as a way to distract from his own. In 2016 Mr. Trump even invited multiple women who had accused Mr. Clinton of sexual abuse to attend one of his debates against Mrs. Clinton. It was a gross — and brilliant — stunt aimed at undermining whatever moral high ground Mrs. Clinton hoped to occupy.
PS: In 2013, in a Daily Beast piece, Cottle denounced Rush Limbaugh as a "degenerate rodeo clown" and compared buying one's child a copy of Limbaugh’s book Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims to letting "Howard Stern come in to lead your preschooler’s circle time."
