The Midterms: Republican women speak up for 'Trump train'

Republican women in Nevada have dismissed United States President Donald Trump's lewd comments about women as being in the past and say the #MeToo movement has blown out of proportion stories of sexual harassment and assault.

Active Republican Women of Las Vegas president Bernadette Anthony said the #MeToo movement had been exploited for political gain.

"Personally, and I'm speaking for myself, I think it got out of hand," Anthony told a group of foreign journalists.

"I think that certain people in our country took very painful memories, very painful things that happened to certain women, and have blown it out of proportion."

Anthony said she believed there wasn't a woman in American who didn't have an experience with being accosted, assaulted or insulted, but an entire movement labelling all men "evil" was an affront to her.

The #MeToo movement against sexual assault and harassment spread on social media in October last year after sexual misconduct allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein surfaced.

It is a movement encouraging both male and female victims to speak out about their experiences to give a sense of the magnitude of the problem.

President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd as he leaves a rally. Photo / AP

When asked about her thoughts on the sexual assault allegation by professor Christine Blasey-Ford made against Brett Kavanaugh during his nomination to the Supreme Court, Anthony said she could not see anything in Kavanaugh's history that "warranted that accusation".

"In fact as a woman I was more insulted that this woman came forward and accused this family man, a man who had been a judge and a justice and an attorney for 25 to 30 years and then all of a sudden out of the blue ... things don't come out of the blue.

"I hate to turn on one of my fellow women ... but in this case, I felt that she was put up to it."

Republican Women of Southern Nevada chairwoman Sarah Rodimer said the Kavanaugh case boiled down to a lack of evidence.

After a supplemental Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and an FBI investigation, the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh's nomination by a vote of 50-48.

Rodimer also dismissed lewd comments Trump made about women in 2005 that surfaced during his nomination for President in 2016, in which he was caught on tape saying that he could touch women however he wanted including grabbing them by the vagina, because he was a star.

"I think a lot of people aren't worried about what happened before he was President because as a President he's accomplished so much in such a short amount of time, that we're not thinking about the past and a little comment, we care about his actions now," Rodimer said.

"Everything he's done, 'Trumps' what he said a long time ago."

When the Washington Post broke the story, Trump took an unusual move for him and apologised for the comments.

James Crockett, 10, holds a mask of President Donald Trump as another supporter holds a mask of first lady Melania Trump as the President speaks at a rally in Indiana. Photo / AP

Rodimer said former President Barack Obama created a bigger divide in America than has been seen before and that Trump brought the people together again.

"People across all genders are getting on the 'Trump train'."

Nevada Federation of Republican Women vice-president Lynn Armanino said Trump made outrageous comments to get a reaction out of people.

"And everybody feeds off of it. I think he knows what he's doing."

She said there was much media bias in the US and that 98 per cent of what the media said about the President was "bad".

"Historically the media in this country has always promoted Democrat Presidents and has always villianised Republican Presidents."

The chief executive of political and public relations consulting firm RedRock Strategies, Dana Walch, said voters needed to distinguish between news and opinion.

"Look at other sources that you don't necessarily agree with. Too many people only gravitate toward the news that they like."

Earlier in the day Las Vegas Review-Journal political reporter Ramona Giwargis said she sometimes did not feel safe because of Trump's blame of the media for what he calls "fake news".

Giwargis said that at a Trump rally she reported on the media was singled out by the President as "the enemy of the American people, the most dishonest people".

"Almost all the supporters in the room turn around and start yelling at you and booing you. The part that's more concerning is when you're leaving the rally and going to your car, you don't feel safe.

"I think it's important for us to keep reminding people that our jobs are protected by the American Constitution and we're just here to tell the truth and hold both sides accountable."

Giwargis and her colleagues, political reporters Colton Lochhead and Gary Martin, said since the Trump Administration took power they had noticed an upturn in name-calling and attack campaigning by both parties, and they did not know if it would ever be reversed.

• Natalie Akoorie is in California and Nevada courtesy of the State Department Foreign Press Centre to report on the 2018 Midterm elections.