‘You Can Do Anything’: In 2005 Tape, Trump Brags About Groping, Kissing Women

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Henderson Pavilion in Nevada on Thursday.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images


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Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Henderson Pavilion in Nevada on Thursday.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Editor’s note: This post contains language that is crude and explicit and that many will find offensive.

Just two days before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are set to meet for their second presidential debate, more damaging audio of the GOP nominee using crude language about women and how he would hit on them has surfaced.

On Friday afternoon, the Washington Post published a clip of Trump on a hot mic before an interview with Access Hollywood. In chatting with then-host Billy Bush, who is now co-host of NBC’s Today show, Trump talked about kissing women and grabbing them between their legs (using far cruder language) without permission, because he’s “attracted” to them like a “magnet.”

“[W]hen you’re a star,” he said, “they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The interview occurred before Trump was set to film a cameo on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, and he said, laughing, that he needed “some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her.”

He apparently was referencing actress Arianne Zucker, who, later in the video, meets Trump to take him on set.

In talking about kissing women, Trump boasted: “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.”

“Grab them by the p****. You can do anything,” the Republican nominee continued, using vulgar slang for the female anatomy.

Trump also told Bush — who is the nephew of former President George H.W. Bush and cousin of former President George W. Bush and former 2016 candidate Jeb Bush — about a time he unsuccessfully tried to seduce a married woman.

“I moved on her, and I failed,” he said. “I’ll admit it. I did try and f*** her. She was married.” He continued, “I moved on her very heavily.”

He said he even took her furniture shopping to try to get her to sleep with him.

“I moved on her like a b****,” he said, “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 t*** and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

Trump issued a three-sentence statement in response to the Post report:

“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”

Trump’s last sentence amounts to a quasi-apology, saying, he apologizes “if anyone was offended,” not that he regrets the remarks.

In regard to trying to shift blame to Bill Clinton, Trump has also threatened to bring up the former president’s infidelities in an attempt to damage his wife during the next debate. That’s despite Trump’s having been divorced twice and admitting to his own adultery. At the time of this 2005 recording, Trump had just married his third (and current) wife, Melania.

This is far from the first time Trump has come under fire for using offensive language about women. Last fall, he criticized Fox News host Megyn Kelly for her tough questions during the first GOP primary debate and said she had “blood coming out of her wherever.”

During the first general-election debate last week, Trump said actress Rosie O’Donnell “deserves” past insults he has made calling her a “pig” with a “fat ugly face.”

And when Clinton brought up how he had mocked a former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, after she had gained weight, Trump doubled down on his comments for days.

Many GOP leaders and lawmakers condemned Trump’s language. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who has defended Trump after past controversial statements, issued a short but direct statement:

“No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.”

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., the highest-ranking woman in GOP leadership, said the comments “should not be part of our political dialogue”:

“It is never appropriate to condone unwanted sexual advances or violence against women. Mr. Trump must realize that it has no place in public or private conversations today or in the past.”

Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, the most vulnerable GOP senator up for re-election, said in a tweet that Trump was “a malignant clown – unprepared and unfit to be president of the United States.” Kirk rescinded his initial endorsement of Trump earlier this year.

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, another Republican at risk of losing her seat, said Trump’s past comments were “totally inappropriate and offensive” but that she wasn’t rescinding her support. Ayotte came under fire earlier this week when she said in a debate that Trump was “absolutely” a role model for kids. She later walked back the comments and said neither candidate should be held up as role models.

Article source: http://www.npr.org/2016/10/07/497087141/donald-trump-caught-on-tape-making-vulgar-remarks-about-women?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

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