Brad Parscale describes marital problems in back of police car, body camera footage shows

A drunken, tearful Brad Parscale sobs to a responding officer in the back of a police car and explains that he “couldn’t accept” that his wife won’t sleep with him in a newly released video.

“I just couldn’t accept she isn’t having sex with me. I couldn’t accept it,” Parscale, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, tells an officer as he sits in the back of a police car.

“She doesn’t?” the officer asks.

“No. Not in months. I just couldn’t accept it. I kept asking her,” Parscale says. “I’m filing for divorce tomorrow as soon as I get out of here. I’m gonna do this thing, whatever, and prove I’m not [expletive] crazy.”

The Daily Mail, the UK-based tabloid, obtained the police bodycam footage. In another video, an officer photographs bruises on Candice Parscale’s arms and a cut on her lip.

He asks her how she got the bruises. She responds that Parscale grabbed at her a few days before.

The officer then asks about her head and the cut on her lip. He asks if Parscale slapped her, and she nods.

Candice Parscale assures the officer she’s fine and declines help.

Parscale was taken from his Fort Lauderdale home by police on Sept. 27 after his wife reported that he was armed and threatening suicide.

The couple had argued, and Candice Parscale said her husband chambered a round into a pistol during a heated exchange between the two.

Officers recovered 10 firearms from his home in the ordeal — including several pistols, a shotgun and rifle. He was detained for a mental health evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act.

Under the state “red flag” law, enacted after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, law enforcement can ask a court for a so-called risk protection order to seize weapons from people who are dangerous to themselves or others.

Standing a towering 6 feet, 8 inches, with a striking full beard, Parscale had taken an unusually public role for a campaign manager, speaking at events and developing a prominent media persona.

But he was demoted by Trump in July as the president’s reelection campaign suffered a series of blows. Among these was a campaign rally in Tulsa that was poorly attended, embarrassing the president, who had expected an overflow crowd. He has also been sharply criticized by both supporters and opponents of the president over extravagance with campaign money, including millions in payments to his own companies.

After the incident at his home, he announced he was leaving the campaign.

Parscale, 44, moved two years ago to Fort Lauderdale, the biggest city in heavily Democratic Broward County, where Trump won 31.4% of the vote in 2016. In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, he explained his move into hostile political territory by invoking his love of boating and the appeal of a state without an income tax.

———

©2020 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.