--- title: Donald Trump’s Transition From Assault to ISIS Made Sense description: Donald Trump pivotted from his hot mic sexual aggression to the fight against ISIS during Sunday's presidential debate. canonical: https://time.com/4525405/presidential-debate-donald-trump-sexual-assault-isis/ author: Heather Hurlburt article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-11T14:51:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:55:05.072Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why Donald Trump’s Transition From Sexual Assault to ISIS Made Sense og:description: National security is still dominated by ideas of masculinity og:url: https://time.com/4525405/presidential-debate-donald-trump-sexual-assault-isis/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77f91c94e7a94eeb/6988a96ebc6cfc414f3dee00/trump3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4504 og:image:height: 2534 og:image:alt: Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump participates in a town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 9, 2016. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Donald Trump’s Transition From Sexual Assault to ISIS Made Sense twitter:description: National security is still dominated by ideas of masculinity twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77f91c94e7a94eeb/6988a96ebc6cfc414f3dee00/trump3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Donald Trump’s Transition From Sexual Assault to ISIS Made Sense > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=07ac857c-b7de-4c83-a129-3b9272311f50&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Biggest Moments from the Second Presidential Debate [Watch (HLS stream): The Biggest Moments from the Second Presidential Debate](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0oFylqsH.m3u8) (3:19)  _Published 2016-10-10. The two candidates face off in the second of three presidential debates._ by [Heather Hurlburt](https://time.com/author/heather-hurlburt/) ## Heather Hurlburt Oct 11, 2016 2:51 PM UTC  Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump participates in a town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 9, 2016. Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump participates in a town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 9, 2016. AFP—AFP/Getty Images by [Heather Hurlburt](https://time.com/author/heather-hurlburt/) ## Heather Hurlburt Oct 11, 2016 2:51 PM UTC Donald Trump drew jeers from his opponents and cheers from his fans for his attempt to pivot from his hot mic sexual aggression to the fight against ISIS during [Sunday night’s presidential debate](http://time.com/4524769/why-we-all-lost-the-debate/?xid=homepage). It’s unlikely this was an accident. [Polls show](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/01/14/chapter-2-what-makes-a-good-leader-and-does-gender-matter/) a significant minority of Americans —preponderantly, but not entirely, male and Republican—continue to view national security as an inherently masculine domain, one in which a female leader, qualified though she may be, is less desirable. Over the past two years, analysts have urged us to ignore this remnant of attitudes of an earlier time. And they had some great-looking data on their side. After all, Hillary Clinton [was](http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/09/hillary-clinton-by-the-numbers/) consistently topping poll [questions](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/08/01/poll.issues.pdf) on “strength” and foreign policy. Terror attacks that pundits predicted would dent her numbers failed to do so. Some even argued that female candidates overall have leveled the playing field. Four months ago, we at New America commissioned polling, as part of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ regular querying of the American public, and a dozen anonymous interviews of high-ranking national security officials on the question of [how gender differences affect U.S. foreign policy](https://www.newamerica.org/better-life-lab/global-gender-parity-initiative/not-secondary-central/gender-inclusivity-and-national-security-untold-story/). We hoped to build awareness and spark discussion of a set of research findings showing strong links between rates of gender-based violence and the likelihood of nations spiralling into extremism and conflict; and, conversely, of how much women’s involvement improves the prospects for peace agreements enduring to end such conflicts. We never imagined releasing them into a media landscape dominated by discussions of [genital-grabbing](http://time.com/4523653/donald-trump-leaked-audio-women/). But what we heard over the weekend makes the connection all too clear. The culture of national security policymaking, our respondents told us, is still dominated by that minority who see the topic as inherently problematic for women—or, more commonly, who see women’s appropriate role as fitting into a man’s world as they find it. All of the national security leaders interviewed by our partners at POLITICO Focus said they viewed women “as useful as men in conflict situations.” But when asked, specifically, what women were good for, no respondent named either of the two key aspects of conflict—making war or negotiating peace. Instead, respondents toggled between what they saw as the cultural realities of other societies—only women can talk to women—and a set of hackneyed stereotypes about women’s innate qualities: “Women can relate to shared experiences, like childbirth.” “Women have better balance.” “Women are better at affecting attitudes in villages and devising effective messaging.” The majority of respondents, and particularly men, made it clear that they didn’t see gender as an important dimension in foreign policy, and that long-term a “win” on gender would mean actually removing it from consideration. Younger respondents and women, however, pointed to this view as the problem and specifically called it a “pervasive mindset of old, white men.” Exactly what is that mindset? One senior policymaker told us: “In my 40-plus years in Washington, I’ve never felt there was a gender gap or inequality of people operating on policy matters.” Given the last half-century’s history—lawsuits over unequal pay and hiring at multiple government agencies, the slow movement of women into front-line and eventually combat roles within the military, the fact that women only reached one-third of Assistant Secretary and above level jobs in the last eight years—this is an astonishing statement. Why does it matter? It seems that our next generation of national security leaders is not getting the message that women and women’s experiences of conflict are relevant to U.S. policy. And, too often, gender inclusion is merely for show. We heard over and over that gender rhetoric is for public consumption but not closed-door policymaking—a response with unsettling echoes of our unseemly political debate. The none-too-subtle message in Trump’s comments Sunday—that someone who is man enough to brag in crude terms about sexual conquest is the best choice for military leadership—finds its echo in the way many of even those of us who find his words repulsive approach the vital task of safeguarding our country. The next president and her or his appointees have a rare opportunity to step past this model in a way that can make an enormous difference for our security. We know what it will take to improve America’s disappointing performance in predicting, preventing and ending conflict, extremism and mass violence: more women involved. Peace processes are significantly more durable when women are at the table. Appointees to prestigious and influential leadership positions should understand this. They must commit to looking at how different experiences fuel conflict or help end it. And surely, after this campaign season, it is not too much to expect that national security leaders will prioritize making full gender equality a reality. ## Transcript [ APPLAUSE ] Hello. Hello. Certainly, I'm not proud of it. But this is lock- a- room talk, you know. When we have a world. Where you have Isis chopping off heads, where you have, and frankly drowning people in steel cages, where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over. I think it's clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is, because we've seen this throughout the campaign. We have seen him insult women. We've seen him rate women on their appearance, ranking them from one to ten. We've seen him embarrass women on TV and on Twitter. It's just words folks. It's just words. If I win, I am going to instruct my Attorney General. To get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Our intelligence community just came out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks, the hacking, on American accounts to influence our election. And believe me, they're not doing it to get me elected. To solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is, or at least say the name. She won't say the name and President Obama won't say the name. But the name is there. It's radical Islamic terror. It's also very shortsighted and even dangerous. To be engaging in the kind of demagogic rhetoric that Donald has about Muslims. It is sort of amusing to hear somebody who hasn't paid federal income taxes in maybe 20 years talking about what he's going to do, but I'll tell you what he's going to do. His plan will give the wealthy and corporations The biggest tax cuts they've ever had. Did you use that $ 960 million loss to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for- Of course I do! Of course I do! And so do all of her donors, or most of her donors. I know many of her donors, her donors took massive tax write- offs. [ CROSSTALK ] Personal federal income tax- A lot of my write- off was depreciation and other things that Hillary, as a senator, allowed. Russia hasn't paid any attention to ISIS. They're interested in keeping Assad in power. You're two minutes is up. I don't like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up Because of our weak foreign policy. Would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another. [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] Look, I respect his children. His children are incredibly able And devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald. I will say this about Hillary, she doesn't quit, she doesn't give up. I respect that. [ APPLAUSE ] And that's it, the 90 minute debate is now over. History has been made. 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