President Obama on Bill Cosby: Just wow
“I’ll say this: If you give a woman, or a man, for that matter, without his or her knowledge a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape. And I think this country, any civilized country, should have no tolerance for rape.”
That was President Barack Obama’s direct, no-nonsense response to a reporter’s question today about whether he had plans to revoke the Medal of Freedom awarded to Bill Cosby, in light of the sexual assault allegations made against the actor by more than 25 women in the last 40 years.
“There’s no precedent for revoking a medal. We don’t have that mechanism,” the President began, before explaining that it’s usually his policy not to comment on the specifics of such cases. Then he defined Bill Cosby’s alleged actions as rape.
Last week, documents from a civil lawsuit filed against Bill Cosby in 2005 were released after the Associated Press appealed to the court to make the public. In the case’s deposition, Cosby testified to obtaining prescription Quaaludes — a sedative drug used as a sleeping pill and muscle relaxant — with the intention of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with. He admitted that he administered the drug at least once.
You can watch the president’s comments in their entirety below.
(Image via video.)
