Donald Trump has suggested that the Access Hollywood "p*ssy grabbing" tape is fake and is now doubling down on his support for accused pedophile Roy Moore.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

But something deeper has been consuming Mr. Trump. He sees the calls for Mr. Moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitalia, and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. He suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. (In the hours after it was revealed in October 2016, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the voice was his, and he apologized.) 

So Mr. Trump has been particularly open to the idea, pushed by Mr. Moore’s defenders, that the candidate is being wrongly accused, even as Mr. McConnell and a parade of other Republicans have said they believe the accusers. When a group of senators gathered with the president in the White House last week to discuss the tax overhaul, it took little to get Mr. Trump onto the topic of Mr. Moore — and he immediately offered up the same it-was-40-years-ago defense, according to officials at the meeting. 

Mr. Trump’s responses to the Moore revelations have been pronounced but not consistent. He accepted the candidate’s initial denials, and then was shocked at how tepid Mr. Moore appeared when asked during an interview with Sean Hannity whether he still maintained his innocence, according to one person close to the president. 

Privately, Mr. Trump has acknowledged that he is making a cold political calculus in the hope that the Republicans will hold on to the seat. A White House official on Saturday reiterated the president’s view that he believes Mr. Moore should quit the race if the allegations are proved true, but the official stressed that the candidate has denied them. 

Moore's denials closely approximate the same denials put forward by Donald Trump himself in response to the huge number of accusations of sexual harassment and assault that emerged during the campaign.

In some ways you could see Trump's desire to support Moore as a vindication of his own accuser's failure to derail HIS campaign.

Even his private denials that the Access Hollywood tape was real is just another attempt to control the narrative.

After all his 2016 victory was proof positive that a woman should never be allowed to stand in the way of a man's ambitions, right?

That is likely why Trump is now pushing hard for Moore's victory in Alabama, turning the election into an "us VS them" battle, in order to shift the focus away from Moore's past behaviors.

The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY. Jones would be a disaster!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2017

I endorsed Luther Strange in the Alabama Primary. He shot way up in the polls but it wasn’t enough. Can’t let Schumer/Pelosi win this race. Liberal Jones would be BAD!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2017

The question to ask is who represents the "us" and who represents the "them?"

Because I think it is less about the Republicans VS the Democrats, and more about the Men VS the Women.