Darla Shine, the wife of newly minted White House deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine, hosted a podcast in the late 2000s where she once suggested women are too emotional to be successful politicians.
Salon reviewed audio from Darla Shine's podcast after her history of mocking victims of sexual harassment in the military, spreading anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and making racially charged comments came to light. Shine, who long maintained a mommy blog where she highlighted recipes and house cleaning, has come under intense scrutiny in recent days after multiple outlets reported she had made racially charged remarks and promoted unfounded anti-vaccination conspiracy theories on her now-deleted Twitter account.
In a previously unreported July 2007 taping, Shine suggested women cannot be successful in politics because they're "hormonal crazy b**ches."
"This is why women are not major in politics, because we are hormonal crazy b**ches," Shine said on her podcast, "Happy Housewives Club," at the time. "It's true, and once a month the moon aligns with our uteruses or something and we get crazy."
While Shine's recently unearthed racist comments have largely been ignored by the White House, the Trump administration does have several women in senior positions, including: Nikki Haley, Ambassador to the United Nations; Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation; Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; Dr. Heather Wilson, Secretary of the Air Force; Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary; Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President; Mercedes Schlapp, Senior Communications Advisor; and Gina Haspel, the first female to head the CIA.
It remains to be seen if Shine's disparaging comments about women in politics will elicit any response or rebuke. Darla Shine did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The White House also did not respond to several requests or indicate if Bill Shine, ousted from Fox News in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal, endorses his wife's views.
In the same episode, Shine also disses one of the president's closest advisers.
Discussing which 2008 presidential candidates she would sleep with — if hypothetically forced to by the C.I.A. — Shine calls Rudy Giuliani "ugly."
"If I had to pick who I would have to sleep with — forced in a room — the C.I.A comes and grabs me and says, 'If you don't sleep with one of these guys, you go to Guantanamo,' I would sleep with John Edwards first," Shine declares. "The Mormon Romney, second. Is his first name Britt? Mitt. He would be second because he's kind of handsome."
"Barack Obama is a good looking guy, too," she adds. "So he would be number three."
But when a guest suggests the former New York City mayor, Shine becomes incensed.
"He is so ugly!" she forcefully retorts. "He doesn't even have a neck. His head is stuck inside his shoulders. "When he moves, his head, his shoulders have to move with him."
In April, Giuliani, a longtime ally of Trump's, joined the president's legal team dealing with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Last week, CNN reported that Shine called herself "sexist" on a 2009 episode of the "Darla Shine Show" and said that it was "insanity" that women would want to serve on the front lines of combat. She also suggested that women in the military should expect to be sexually harassed.
"You know there was just a story with these girls, these women who are upset that they are sexually harassed in the military," Shine said at the time. "What do you think is going to happen when you go on a submarine for 12 months with 4,000 horny soldiers?"
Shine has faced a wave of criticism following the hiring of her husband, disgraced former Fox News executive Bill Shine who was ousted from the conservative cable news giant amidst a massive sexual harassment scandal, as Trump's new head of communication. In recent weeks, she has faced backlash for her public comments discrediting sexual assault accusers.
Her husband, Bill Shine, was ousted from his job as president of Fox News in May 2017 after being named in multiple lawsuits for his handling of the network's mounting sexual harassment scandals. He joined the White House as deputy chief of staff for communications — the administration's sixth in 18 months — earlier this month.
The ascension of Shine further suggests Trump is perfectly fine promoting men with troubling pasts. Earlier this year, when White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter was accused of physical and emotional abuse by several former partners, Trump lamented a perceived lack of "due process." And despite the allegations against Porter, Trump recently told some advisers he hopes Porter returns to work in the West Wing. The president also endorsed the far-right former judge Roy Moore, accused of child molestation, in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama.
As my colleague Rachel Leah notes, the "appointment of Shine underscores that a job candidate's role in multiple workplace sexual harassment complaints and lawsuits is not a deterrent for the White House."
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