Doug Emhoff brushes off report he struck ex-girlfriend as a distraction in first public response to allegations

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff publicly responded for the first time to allegations that he “forcefully” struck an ex-girlfriend more than a decade ago during a booze-filled evening in France, brushing off the reports as a “distraction.”MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked Emhoff to respond to several “tabloid stories about your personal life,” in apparent reference to accusations from Daily Mail sources that he slapped his former flame and hiring a “trophy secretary” at his high-powered Los Angeles law firm.“We don’t have time to be pissed off,” Emoff said in response.“We don’t have time to focus on it.

It’s all a distraction.It’s designed to try to get us off our game.”Scarborough said former President Donald Trump was needlessly amplifying the stories, while making “incredibly crude and lewd” suggestions about Vice President Kamala Harris’ past. ...