INTERNATIONAL NEWS - US Republican Donald Trump has dismissed his vulgar sexual comments about women that surfaced on a video as “ locker room talk”, but his explanation did little to soothe the queasiness of Esther Rosser, a 71-year old grandmother from Virginia. “ I know he apologised, and all you can do is apologise, but he could have said more,” Rosser said.

She has voted Republican her whole life but decided this weekend that she would support Trump’s rival for president, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“He disrespected us,” she said of Trump, referring to women in general.

Rosser’s misgivings echoed many of the sentiments expressed by more than two dozen women voters interviewed who, as recently as last month, had not decided whether they would support Trump or Clinton in the November 8 US election.

In the informal survey conducted by phone the day after Sunday’s presidential debate, many women said they were appalled by the 2005 video in which Trump bragged of kissing and groping women without consent.

Several of the voters also said they disliked the Republican presidential candidate’s strategy of highlighting the infidelities of Hillary Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, in an effort to defend his own conduct, or shift attention away from it.

“I didn’t like the fact that he was attacking Hillary on things her husband did,” Connie Sasso, a 66-year-old retiree from Missouri, said.

“It’s wrong – it’s just wrong.”

In the second presidential debate with Clinton in St Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, Trump said he was embarrassed by the video, but dismissed his comments as “locker room talk.”