In October 2016, the Washington Post aired an interview from 2006 from the entertainment television program Access Hollywood, which was syndicated by NBC. Trump was scheduled to make a cameo on the network’s soap opera Days of Our Lives.
The video began with Trump chatting with the program’s then-host Billy Bush.
Trump referred to Nancy O’Dell, who was the co-host of the program:
Trump: “I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.”
Bush: “Whoa.”
Trump: “I did try and fuck her. She was married.”
Bush: “That’s huge news.”
Trump: “No, no, Nancy. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’ I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
Trump then saw Adrianne Zucker, a cast member of Days of Our Lives, and began discussing with Bush what he considered the perks of being a celebrity.
Trump: “Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Bush: “Whatever you want.”
Trump: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Never in U.S. history has a presidential candidate revealed himself to be such a depraved freak … and so close to a presidential election.
It provided to Americans and to those in the Republican Party a moment of moral clarity where they had to reject this deviant, whose actions were beyond any measure of acceptability, for the good of the party and the good of the country.
Trump had revealed who he really was – in his image and in his words.
The GOP had to respond whether it was the party of Christian values, as it promoted itself, or the party of no values. The GOP had to respond as it did to President Clinton’s sexual excesses and demand that he resign and, if he did not resign, it would take action so that he was publicly humiliated.
Trump’s words on the Access Hollywood tape would be a prelude to who he would be as president and how he would act as president.
The GOP’s response to the video was a prelude to how it would act to protect and enable Trump at the cost of extremists nearly destroying the country on January 6, 2021.
The GOP and his enablers did nothing after the airing of the videotape.
NBC suspended Bush as host of the Today show for saying, among other things, that Adrianne Zucker “was hot as shit.”
(Whatever that means).
Bush left Access Hollywood in the years between his conversation with Trump and The Post’s publication of the interview for a higher-profile position with Today. Bush then resigned from the program in response to the tape’s fallout.
Bush is a cousin of former president George W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was briefly the contender to be the GOP’s nominee in the 2016 Presidential Election, but faded after a series of insults by Trump during the GOP debates.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/a-list-of-insults-donald-trump-has-hurled-at-jeb-bush/
The Economist asked, “Who would have thought that Mr. Bush, a presenter of NBC’s Today news show, could end up playing a more influential role in this election than his cousin Jeb whom many Republicans had expected to win it?”
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/10/08/donald-trump-boasts-of-groping-women
Trump denied that he ever engaged in inappropriate behavior after an Associated Press story reported that 20 women on The Apprentice program said that Trump’s behavior toward them had been lewd and inappropriate.
“Trump repeatedly demeaned women with sexist language, according to show insiders who said he rated female contestants by the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex with,” The Associated Press story said.
Under pressure to drop out the election, Trump refused, provided a weak apologize, and then explained that his comments were “locker room” talk.
This comment drew far more outrage from coaches and athletes than his comment about grabbing a woman’s pussy drew from Republican and religious leaders.
https://www.si.com/more-sports/2016/10/14/donald-trump-locker-room-talk-comments-athlete-reactions
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pro-athletes-slam-donald-trump-locker-room-talk-leaked-video-2005/
In 2017, Trump then denied that he ever made the comment about “grabbing” a woman by “pussy” – even though there was video and audio of him saying that, even though he had apologized for the statement.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/28/16710130/trump-says-access-hollywood-tape-fake
“How do you apologize for something and then renege on it,” Adrianne Zucker said.
Natalie Morales, a host for Access Hollywood, responded: “Let us make this perfectly clear, the tape is very real. He said every one of those words.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/28/16710130/trump-says-access-hollywood-tape-fake
Billy Bush also confirmed that Trump was lying when he said he didn’t make the comments on Access Hollywood tape.
The Access Hollywood tape was used as evidence in writer E. Jean Carroll’s successful lawsuit against Trump for sexually assaulting her.
A jury found Trump liable in May 2023 of sexually abusing Carroll in 1996.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db
