"If a deal is not reached, I will have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and other participating countries," President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
It’s quite possible they wouldn’t, but I suspect it would depend on the age of the underage girls. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were under the minimum age in all those 37 states. And of course, he didn’t marry them.
The marriage thing just turns an ethical / moral / health matter into a legal one. If they were really against sex with minors, they’d be against child marriage. But they aren’t, so this is just another way to be outraged at something where they feel there will be no repercussions because the target group is rightfully frowned upon.
Anyhow, if such a tape exists, he could just claim everyone said the girls were over 18; and if they weren’t, maybe the tapes were produced somewhere where sex between them is legal? Remember, all pearl clutching and rule of law talk from them is hollow, this is just “we can do whatever we want and you have to do what we want” behavior, thinly disguised.
You’re trying to apply your logic and values to the whole thing; it doesn’t work because there’s retroactively applied justification at best.
Again, it depends how young they are, there’s a limit to how far you can push the “they were all 18” argument.