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Donald Trump made sexually aggressive and demeaning remarks about women in a tape published on Friday, a new revelation that threatens to envelop, if not sink, his candidacy just days before his second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.
In the tape, Trump boasts of trying to have sex with a married woman, aggressively kissing attractive women — “I don’t even wait,” he brags — and grabbing at their genitals.
“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says to Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” in a clip from 2005 that was first published by the Washington Post late on Friday. “You can do anything.”
“Whatever you want,” an off-camera voice that appears to Bush replies.
“Grab them by the pussy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
The audio represents an extraordinary level of vulgarity —Democrats quickly condemned Trump for casually joking about sexual assault — even for a candidate who seized the Republican nomination through his proud embrace of political incorrectness.
“This is horrific,” Hillary Clinton said on Twitter. “We cannot allow this man to become president.”
Trump reacted quickly and defensively, offering a non-apology — “I apologize if anyone was offended” — and tried to shift the focus elsewhere. “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,” Trump claimed.
In the tape, Trump, who was only recently married to Melania Trump at the time, says of an unknown woman, “I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it.” “I did try and fuck her,” Trump added. “She was married.”
He said he moved on the woman “very heavily,” even taking her furniture shopping.
“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
POLITICO has decided to publish the full quotes from the Trump tape, without redaction, due to the extraordinary nature of the comments.
Trump has weathered numerous other controversies, including his own past taped remarks commenting on women’s appearances that Clinton has aired in heavy rotation in battleground states. But some top Democrats said the new tape — and its description of grabbing at women against their will because Trump is a “star” had crossed a line.
“Game over,” said former Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. “He is discussing sexual assault.”
“It’s horrifying, disgusting, and on a whole other level than any of his previous comments,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith. “This isn’t him just being sexist. This is him bragging about committing sexual assault.”
Republicans were aghast, “I won’t defend that!” texted one prominent Republican woman who has endorsed Trump. “I am so sad.”
Trump is scheduled to campaign alongside Speaker Paul Ryan on Saturday for the first time in Wisconsin. Ryan’s political operation did not immediately say whether the event would continue as planned.
The Republican National Committee’s chief strategist, Sean Spicer, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Trump tape. The RNC’s social media accounts, meanwhile, fell silent.
The leaked tape caps a disastrous two weeks for Trump since the first presidential debate. He stumbled on stage at Hofstra University — he complained about his microphone and floated a conspiracy theory that he had been sabotaged — and then spent the days after the debate embroiled in a back-and-forth over his two-decade ago campaign to shame a former beauty pageant winner over her weight.
Later, the New York Times published portions of his 1995 taxes, revealing that Trump declared a loss of more than $900 million that could have shielded him from paying income taxes for nearly 20 years. Trump is the first major presidential candidate in decades to refuse to release any of his tax returns for public scrutiny.
Trump has steadily lost ground in the polls since, with Clinton’s lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average roughly doubling since the first debate, from 2.3 percentage points to 4.5 points on Friday.
-politico.com
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