Michelle Obama rebukes Trump's 'sexually predatory behavior'

US First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a scintillating attack against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “sexually predatory behavior.”

Speaking in support of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire on Thursday, Mrs. Obama said that lewd comments made by Trump about women in a 2005 audio recording could not simply be dismissed as a “disturbing footnote in a sad election season.”

“This is not normal. This is not politics as usual,” she said in a speech during which her voice at times was quaking with fury. “This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn’t matter what party you belong to. No woman deserves to be treated this way — none of us deserves this kind of abuse.”

The Washington Post released a recording on October 7 in which Trump is heard making vulgar comments about women and having a conversation about trying to have sex with a married woman.

He can be heard saying “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful” women. "I just start kissing them," he says. "I don't even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Trump apologized for the lewd and sexually aggressive remarks, but during the second presidential debate with Clinton, he tried to dismiss the tape as “locker room talk.”

“I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women this way,” Mrs. Obama added. “To dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.”

"This was not just a lewd conversation,” the US first lady said, “that wasn’t just locker room banter.”

“This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior and actually bragging about kissing and groping women — using language so obscene that many of us were worried about children hearing it when we turn on the TV,” she stated.

“I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” she told the crowd.

"I've listened to this, and I feel it so personally," the first lady said. "And I'm sure that many of you do, too -- particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. That is cruel. It's frightening. And the truth is, it hurts."

Mrs. Obama’s speech, dubbed as one of her the best speeches supporting Clinton during the 2016 campaign, went viral on social media and elsewhere. MSNBC anchor Joy Reid’s called it “Michelle Obama’s ‘yes we can’ speech.”

Trump has come under increasing pressure as more women are claiming to have been sexually abused by the billionaire businessman.

Several reports appeared on Wednesday in which multiple women claimed that the reality TV star had groped and forcibly kissed them.

Trump, however, dismissed allegations as "outright lies" fabricated by the American news media, which, he said is an entrenched establishment force “in bed” with Clinton and determined to get her elected president.

He called the stories of his sexual misconduct “slander and libel” and part of a “concerted, coordinated and vicious attack” launched by Clinton and the news media to destroy his campaign.

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