Maura Healey weighs in on Trump’s ‘locker room talk’ and Tom Brady
During an interview Monday with Boston Public Radio, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey weighed in on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Healey told hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braude she was heartened and proud to see athletes and celebrities step forward and condemn the Republican nominee’s claim that his bragging about sexual assault on a 2005 tape released this month was “locker room talk.”“So many decent men are offended by this kind of comment and the suggestion that this was ‘locker room talk,’” she said. In particular, Healey praised Patriots running back James White and former linebacker Andre Tippett for their involvement with Game Change, a partnership between the Attorney General’s office and the Patriots Charitable Foundation that provides anti-domestic violence and sexual assault strategies to students and school officials across the state. A caller to the program asked Healey how she felt given her work with the Patriots on issues of domestic violence and sexual assault that Brady walked out on reporters when asked for his thoughts on Trump’s “locker room talk.”The attorney general said she leaves it to individual athletes to decide how they want to address the comments, but added, “Would I have liked to see Tom Brady say something? Sure. Absolutely.”
Healey said her view is that to address the culture, you have to get at people at a young age and empower boys and girls to “see this isn’t the way.”
“It’s too late for a miserable person like Donald Trump,” she said, speaking of the Game Change program. “But it’s not too late for young boys and girls out there.”
Healey said since the tape was released she has heard from friends, associates, and people in the community who are reacting to “trauma” of hearing Trump’s words.
Some have come to her physically shaking and crying, she said.
“Michelle Obama was absolutely right,” Healy said. “This was personal.”
On Monday, Brady addressed his decision to ignore the question about the recorded conversation of Trump making lewd comments about women.
“Obviously there’s a lot of headlines to make, and I’ve tried not to make a lot of headlines,” Brady said in an interview on WEEI’s Kirk and Callahan. “I’ve been in an organization where we’re taught to say very little. … The thing I’ve always thought is I don’t want to be a distraction for the team.”
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