What did Donald Trump do today?

He waved off domestic abuse and a toddler's broken collarbone as "just accusations."

Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) has a long history of women accusing him of violent behavior. That list includes Trump's former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who told Trump and his wife Melania that Miller had assaulted her. Trump, who liked them as a couple because he thought they looked good together, ignored it.

I felt that Mrs. Trump believed my story. I suspected the president, long invested in the view that women usually make up allegations of assault, didn’t want to believe it.

Whether they believed me or not, however, isn’t really the point. My ex has denied my allegations and engaging in any such behavior, but his denials aren’t really the point either.

The point is that the president and first lady seemed totally unfazed about whether there was an abuser — another abuser — in their workplace. There was no follow-up from either of them to see if I needed help or protection. There was no investigation ordered. No effort to get to the bottom of this. 

Miller now faces even more serious charges from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. She says that Miller threatened her with a gun, threw scalding water on her during a fight, and broke their 2-year-old daughter's collarbone. (Evidence from medical records showed bruising in the shape of a hand on the child's injury.)

There were three developments in that matter today. The first is that Miller went on the offensive against Moreno, alleging without evidence that she is delusional and danger to their daughter. He also offered as "proof" that he was not an abuser the claim that, within a week of their last fight, Moreno voluntarily cooked dinner for him.

The second is that Moreno's father, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), finally broke his silence and condemned Miller. There is evidence that Miller was trying to blackmail Moreno over alleged gay affairs from 20 years ago. It's not clear whether that played a role in Sen. Moreno's reluctance to speak out before now, or simply political pressure from the Trump White House. Miller is a favorite of Trump, whom he served as an aide.

The third is that Trump, asked about the matter, breezily waved away what Emily Moreno has said about her and her daughter being assaulted: "So far it's accusations." 

Q: You were asked yesterday whether Rep. Max Miller should resign from Congress over the allegations, and you said you'd have a look at it.

TRUMP: Yeah. It’s a very sad thing. I know Max. He’s a good person. I mean, I always thought he was a very good person, and I’m going to let the families figure that out. You know those families, uh, I know they're working on it. It’s a very sad thing, especially when you know somebody so well, to be going through that. But it's accusations. 

It's not clear whether Trump knew or cared that "the families" are at the point where they are taking out restraining orders against Miller, or even whether he remembered that this wasn't the first time a woman he knew personally had just made "accusations" about Miller specifically.

This is far from the first time that Trump has defended men in his orbit against women making allegations he can't possibly know are false. He stonewalled an FBI investigation into credible threats of sexual assault made against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. He's also branded as liars the women who have accused former Fox pundit Bill O'Reilly, accused pedophile and Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Roy Moore, Mike Tyson (with whom Trump had a business relationship), Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and White House aide Rob Porter. 

Trump, who one jury found as a matter of legal fact had raped a woman, has been accused by dozens of women of sexual assault and harassment. They run the gamut from his own ex-wife, who accused him of violently raping her during their marriage when he was angry over a botched hair transplant surgery, to underage girls who reported that he walked in on them while they were undressing at a pageant he ran. (Trump admitted to peeping on pageant contestants, but not specifically the underage ones.) He admitted on tape to "grabbing" women "by the pussy" and daring them to do anything about it because he was a "star." 

The allegations, which don't include activities like the time he threw a party at which the only attendees were himself, convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and "young women in a so-called calendar girl competition," span four decades. Few if any of the women who have accused Trump knew each other.

Why does this matter?

• Beating a two-year-old girl until her bones break is a despicable crime that deserves more than a shrug, whether or not Donald Trump thinks so. 

• Defending a man with a history of abuse and violence towards women is pretty much what you'd expect from a man with a history of abuse and violence towards women. 

• Given the political situation, the only reason Trump would have to defend Miller is that he genuinely cannot believe (or care about) women who say they have been abused.