The newspaper USA Today has launched a blistering attack on Donald Trump after he attacked a female Democratic Senator on Twitter.
In an editorial that has been widely shared, the publication said the President "is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library".
The paper was responding to Trump's tweet early on Tuesday, which it criticised for being sexually demeaning towards the Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. In the tweet (below), Mr Trump said she would come "begging" to his office for campaign contributions and "would do anything for them".
In a searing response, the editorial board of USA Today expresses disgust at the President's language. "With his latest tweet, clearly implying that a United States senator would trade sexual favours for campaign cash, President Trump has shown he is not fit for office," it says. "Rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low."
The editorial continues with a comparison of Mr Trump and his presidential predecessors. "A president who would all but call Sen Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W Bush," it says.
Hours after Mr Trump attacked Ms Gillibrand, the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was challenged over his language and whether he meant to use such innuendo. “I think only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way,” Ms Sanders said.
“There’s no way that this is sexist at all. This is simply talking about a system that we have that is broken in which special interests control our government,” she continued. “And I don't think that there’s probably many people that are more controlled by political contributions than the senator that the president referenced.”
In their editorial, USA Today wasn't swayed by Ms Sanders' spin however. "As is the case with all of Trump's digital provocations, the president's words were deliberate," it wrote. "He pours the gasoline of sexist language and lights the match gleefully knowing how it will burst into flame in a country reeling from the #MeToo moment".
