On the heels of a story that broke earlier this week, in which the Associated Press interviewed more than 20 former "The Apprentice" employees, some of the cast and crew described Mr. Trump's behavior toward women, recalling that he, on many occasions, made lewd and inappropriate comments.
The Trump
campaign issued a denial, saying, "These outlandish, unsubstantiated and
totally false claims fabricated by publicity hungry opportunistic, disgruntled
former employees have no merit whatsoever."
Access Hollywood
has interviewed Mr. Trump hundreds of times over the past 20 years. In the
course of reporting on Mr. Trump, Access has reviewed much of our own footage.
In 2005, when Mr. Trump came to Los Angeles for the Emmy Awards -- for his nominated show "The Apprentice" -- he was also invited to spend a day as a soap opera star on "Days of Our Lives."
Access
Hollywood's former anchor, Billy Bush, picked up Mr. Trump in our 10th
anniversary bus at the Beverly Hills Hotel. We then brought him to meet up with
one of the stars of the soap opera on the then-NBC lot in Burbank, where
"Days of Our Lives" is filmed, and Access Hollywood was
then-produced.
During the trip to the lot, Bush interviewed Mr. Trump about his role on the soap opera.
"Well, the people
at NBC asked me to do it," Mr. Trump said at the time about his role on the soap. "I'm here in Los Angeles. It's fun to do. I didn't want to do
it, and then, you know, and I asked Melania, 'Is it OK?' because the place is
loaded up with beautiful women from what I understand. So she said, 'It's
OK.'"
"What if she
said it wasn't OK?" Bush asked.
"I would have absolutely not done it," Trump replied.
There were seven other people on the bus with Mr. Trump and Bush at the time, including Access Hollywood staffers, members of Mr. Trump's staff and a bus driver.
Upon arriving at
the NBC Lot, the Access camera crew was let off the bus so they could film Mr.
Trump disembarking from the bus and meeting the soap opera star.
Mr. Trump made comments about former Access
Hollywood anchor Nancy O'Dell, to Bush.
"I've moved
on her actually. You know, she was down in Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I
failed. I'll admit it. I did try and f*** her. She was married," Trump
said at the time.
"Nancy, no
this was -- and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture
shopping," Mr. Trump continued. "She wanted to get some furniture. I
said 'I'll show you where they have some nice furniture.' I took her out,
furniture, I moved on her like a b****. But I couldn't get there,
and she was married. And all of a sudden I see her she's now got the big phony
t*** and everything," Mr. Trump continued. "She's totally changed her look."
Once the bus was
in place, Mr. Trump and Bush, the last two on the bus, waited to exit as Mr.
Trump then made the following comments to Bush about the soap opera star, who was
standing outside the bus, waiting to welcome Mr. Trump to the set.
"I gotta use
some Tic-Tacs just in case I start kissing her," he said, at the time,
before exiting the bus. "You know I'm automatically attracted to
beautiful-- I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. And when you're a
star they let you do it. You can do anything," Trump said.
"Whatever
you want," Bush responded.
"Grab them
by the p***y. ... Do anything," he said.
In response, Mr.
Trump has released a statement.
"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," his statement read.
This afternoon,
the Clinton campaign tweeted, "This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become
president," in response to a Tweet from a Washington Post writer, quoting
Mr. Trump from the Access Hollywood 2005 footage.
In a statement on Friday, Bush said, "Obviously I'm embarrassed and ashamed. It's no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago - I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry."
-- Access Hollywood Staff
