Former Trump aide: the Republican Party 'has a moral obligation to walk away from this man'

The co-hosts of "The View" began their Wednesday show celebrating the accountability handed to Donald Trump by a New York jury on Tuesday which found he sexually abused and defamed columnist E. Jean Carroll.

The show's conservative co-host, Alyssa Farah Griffin – who previously worked as a communications adviser to Trump's White House – was frustrated with her party's lack of reaction on the topic.

"I credit [former Gov.] Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) for being one of the few Republicans with a backbone in this, because a GOP frontrunner running for president was found liable for sexual battery and defamation," said Griffin. "We have a moral obligation as a party to walk away from this man. And I remember, I was coming up as a kid in the '90s during the Bill Clinton sexual allegation scandals, and we took him to the woodshed. Every Republican who came after Bill Clinton for sexual impropriety needs to have the same reaction."

Co-host Joy Behar pointed to evangelical Christians, who have been loyal to the Republican Party despite ethics problems.

"And, I just can't help but think, one in three women will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetimes," Griffin continued. "What messages are they sending to female voters, to our daughters, to our mothers, to our sisters by saying this?"

Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, said that she used to prosecute these kinds of cases and explained that she couldn't understand why the jury didn't find Trump culpable of rape over sexual abuse, because the New York definition of "rape" would match the situation.

"When you see everything that he's talking about, you know, you can grab them like that, you can grab them by the genitalia; consent is not an issue for him, he doesn't think," said Hostin.

"I think what made this case so much stronger than any other cases, you know, when cases last 18 years or 20 years or 30 years, memories fade, people don't really remember where they were, what they were wearing, they don't remember what day it was. So, it's very easy to cross-examine them. She immediately reported it to two friends, and they testified."

What she found "troubling," she said, was Mike Pence, who spoke out after the verdict and claimed that people just don't talk about it with him.

"A troubling thing is to have someone like Mike Pence, who says he's a man of faith, who says he's an evangelical, and says people don't talk to me about this," Hostin continued.

"Mike Pence, they need to talk to you about this. As Alyssa said, this is about our future, about our daughters, our mothers, our wives, and women. How dare you say this doesn't matter. That's why rape is the most under-reported crime in our country because of men like Mike Pence that don't think it's important."

See the full conversation below or at the link here.