Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape

Based on Wikipedia: Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape

On the afternoon of October 7, 2016, exactly one month before Americans would choose their next president, a Washington Post reporter named David Fahrenthold received a video that would reshape the final stretch of one of the most contentious elections in modern history. The footage was eleven years old, shot in a parking lot at NBC Studios, and it captured a conversation that the participants surely never expected the world to hear.

The man speaking was Donald Trump, then a reality television star and real estate mogul, not yet the Republican nominee for president. The year was 2005, and Trump was about to film a cameo appearance on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. He was riding in a tour bus emblazoned with the logo of Access Hollywood, an entertainment news program, chatting casually with the show's co-anchor Billy Bush.

Both men were wearing microphones. They knew they were being recorded for television. What they apparently forgot, or perhaps didn't care about, was that the microphones were still hot during their private conversation on the bus.

What the Tape Captured

The recording begins with Trump describing a failed attempt to seduce a married woman—Nancy O'Dell, who was Bush's co-host at the time. His language was blunt and crude. He talked about taking her furniture shopping as a pretext for pursuing her, complained that she was married, and made disparaging remarks about her physical appearance.

But the exchange that would be replayed thousands of times, analyzed by legal experts, and invoked in courtrooms for years to come happened when Trump and Bush spotted Arianne Zucker, an actress from Days of Our Lives, approaching the bus.

"I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her," Trump said. "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. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."

Three words from that statement—"grab 'em by the pussy"—would become perhaps the most infamous phrase in American political history.

The Mechanics of a Leak

How did an eleven-year-old video suddenly surface at the most consequential moment of a presidential campaign? The answer involves institutional memory, corporate anxiety, and journalistic competition.

According to Access Hollywood, the discovery began when an Associated Press story appeared in early October 2016 featuring twenty former employees of The Apprentice—Trump's reality television show—describing his behavior toward women as lewd and inappropriate. A producer at Access Hollywood remembered the old conversation with Trump and went digging through the show's archives.

The celebrity gossip website TMZ later reported a different version of events. According to their sources, senior NBC executives actually knew about the tape well before October but thought it was "too early in the presidential campaign season to release it with maximum effect." If true, this would mean network executives were sitting on explosive footage while deliberating about its optimal political timing.

Regardless of how it was found, by October 4 NBC had prepared a story about the tape. But the network hesitated. Lawyers reviewed the footage for potential legal liability—a standard practice in journalism when publishing material that powerful people might want to suppress. For three days, the story sat unpublished.

Then, on the morning of October 7, someone gave a copy to David Fahrenthold at the Washington Post.

What followed was a brief, intense scramble. Fahrenthold contacted NBC for comment, alerted the Trump campaign that he possessed the video, verified its authenticity, and published his story with the tape embedded by 4 p.m. NBC, realizing the Post was about to scoop them on their own footage, rushed out their version "mere minutes" after Fahrenthold's story went live.

Within hours, the Post's article became the most concurrently viewed piece in the newspaper's history. More than 100,000 people read it simultaneously that afternoon—so many that the Post's servers briefly went offline from the traffic surge. Fahrenthold would later win the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, with this story among his cited work.

The Legal Question: Was This Sexual Assault?

The phrase "locker room talk" would soon become Trump's preferred characterization of his statements. But legal experts immediately raised a more serious question: Was Trump describing, even boasting about, sexual assault?

In most American jurisdictions, touching a person's genitals without their consent constitutes sexual assault, commonly called groping. Many attorneys and commentators argued that Trump's words described exactly this.

Lisa Bloom, a civil rights lawyer specializing in sexual harassment cases, was unequivocal: "Let's be very clear, he is talking about sexual assault. He is talking about grabbing a woman's genitals without her consent."

The legal analysis hinged on a particular phrase: "I don't even wait."

John Banzhaf, a public interest law professor at George Washington University, explained the significance: "If Trump suddenly and without any warning reached out and grabbed a woman's crotch or breast, it would rather clearly constitute sexual assault."

But Trump's defenders pointed to other words in the same passage: "when you're a star, they let you do it." This, they argued, implied consent—that women permitted such behavior from celebrities. The debate over whether "letting" someone do something constitutes meaningful consent would echo through American discourse for years afterward, particularly during the MeToo movement that was still two years away.

Political Earthquake

The timing could not have been worse for the Republican Party. The tape dropped exactly two days before the second presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's campaign responded within minutes. "This is horrific," Clinton tweeted. "We cannot allow this man to become president." Her running mate, Tim Kaine, said the tape made him "sick to my stomach."

For Republicans, the tape created an impossible choice. Many had already endorsed Trump as their party's nominee. Now they had to decide whether to stand by him, abandon him, or attempt some uncomfortable middle ground.

The responses split roughly into three categories.

Some Republicans condemned Trump's words while maintaining their support. Mike Pence, Trump's own running mate, expressed disapproval but stayed on the ticket. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus took similar positions—calling the comments unacceptable while stopping short of withdrawing their endorsements.

Others broke publicly with Trump. John McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee, announced he would no longer support Trump's campaign. Several Republican officials called for Trump to withdraw from the race entirely.

Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives—at the time the highest-ranking elected Republican in the country—tried to thread an impossible needle. He announced he would no longer defend or campaign for Trump, but he technically did not retract his endorsement. It was a distinction that satisfied almost no one.

Trump's Response

On Saturday, October 8, Trump released an apology video. His strategy was to minimize, deflect, and counterattack.

First, the minimization: He called his statements "locker room banter." This framing suggested the comments were a normal, if crude, form of male bonding—not a description of actual behavior.

Second, the deflection: He acknowledged saying "things I regret" without specifying which things or why they were wrong.

Third, the counterattack: He pivoted to Bill Clinton, saying that Hillary's husband had "said far worse to me on the golf course." This whataboutism would become a signature Trump tactic—responding to accusations against himself by pointing to alleged sins of his opponents.

The strategy was classic Trump: never fully apologize, never accept the framing of your critics, always stay on offense.

The Collateral Damage

While Trump weathered the storm politically, Billy Bush was destroyed professionally.

Bush was not a presidential candidate with a base of loyal supporters. He was a television personality whose value to his employer depended on his likability and his appeal to the Today show's predominantly female audience. The tape revealed him laughing along with Trump, making his own crude comments about Zucker being "hot as shit," and goading her into hugging Trump after they exited the bus.

The backlash was immediate and severe. His Twitter account was taken down the evening the tape was released due to the volume of negative comments. He issued an apology that night, calling himself "embarrassed and ashamed" and pleading that "this happened eleven years ago—I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along."

NBC executives initially said Bush's job was safe. On Monday, October 10, they reversed course and suspended him indefinitely. By Tuesday, the network was negotiating his departure. On October 17, Bush resigned.

The disparity in consequences was striking. Bush, who was essentially an audience to Trump's monologue, lost his career. Trump, who delivered the monologue, won the presidency.

Bush's family connection added an ironic dimension to his downfall. He was the cousin of Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor whom many Republicans had expected to win the 2016 nomination. The Economist observed the absurdity: "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?"

The Women Respond

Nancy O'Dell, the married woman Trump had described pursuing, released a statement that avoided partisan politics while expressing disappointment. "Politics aside, I'm saddened that these comments still exist in our society at all," she said. "The conversation needs to change because no female, no person, should be the subject of such crass comments."

Arianne Zucker, who had been objectified on the tape and then pressured by Bush to hug Trump on camera, responded with dignity: "How we treat one another, whether behind closed doors, locker rooms or face to face, should be done with kindness, dignity and respect."

Even Tic Tac got involved. Trump's casual mention of using their breath mints before kissing women prompted the company to issue an unusual statement: "Tic Tac respects all women. We find the recent statements and behavior completely inappropriate and unacceptable."

Inside the Trump Marriage

Perhaps the most consequential audience for the tape was Melania Trump.

The recording had been made shortly after Donald and Melania's wedding in 2005, while she was pregnant with their son Barron. According to Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who was then a close Trump ally, Donald Trump dreaded facing his wife after the tape leaked. It took him two hours to go see her.

The campaign team understood that Melania's response could be decisive. A third wife publicly abandoning her husband over evidence of his attitudes toward women might have been fatal to his candidacy. When they finally spoke privately, Melania reportedly said: "Now you could lose, you could have blown this for us."

Then she left the room.

Melania was frustrated by the pity directed toward her and wanted to craft her own response rather than follow the campaign's talking points. When advisers proposed a coordinated strategy, her reply was simply: "No."

She wrote her own statement. Donald asked only to read it before she spoke to the press. Her words were carefully calibrated—disapproving but ultimately supportive:

"The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. This does not represent the man that I know. He has the heart and mind of a leader. I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation."

The Tape in Court

The Access Hollywood tape would resurface years later in a very different context.

E. Jean Carroll, a writer and advice columnist, alleged that Donald Trump had raped her in a department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996. When she came forward publicly in 2019, Trump denied knowing her and called her a liar. Carroll sued for defamation and, later, under a New York law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims.

During a deposition in October 2022, Trump was shown the Access Hollywood tape and asked whether his statements were true.

His answer was remarkable. Rather than dismissing the comments as mere boasting or locker room talk—his position in 2016—Trump seemed to affirm them as factually accurate.

"Historically, that's true with stars," he said. "If you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately, or fortunately."

The tape was admitted as evidence at trial. On May 9, 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation against Carroll and ordered him to pay her $5 million. Trump requested a new trial. On July 19, 2023, Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the request.

Did the Tape Matter?

This is the question that haunted political observers then and still does now.

A 2020 academic study found that the tape did reduce public support for Trump. Polls showed immediate damage to his numbers in the days following its release.

But Trump won the election anyway.

How is this possible? Several explanations have been offered. Partisan polarization had become so intense that many voters would support their party's nominee regardless of personal conduct. Hillary Clinton's own political liabilities, including the FBI's investigation of her email practices (which director James Comey famously reopened just eleven days before the election), may have offset Trump's scandals. Some voters may have genuinely accepted the "locker room talk" defense. Others may have weighed the tape against policy considerations and decided that Supreme Court nominations or tax policy mattered more than a candidate's character.

The tape became a test case for a broader question that American politics is still grappling with: In an era of tribal partisanship, are there any revelations damaging enough to cause significant numbers of voters to abandon their party's candidate?

Cultural Aftershocks

The Access Hollywood tape left marks beyond politics.

Saturday Night Live addressed it the very next night. Alec Baldwin, who had just begun his impersonation of Trump, incorporated the scandal into his portrayal. Samantha Bee created a parody that reversed the gender roles. The singer Carly Simon, who had never permitted her music to be used for political purposes, donated her 1972 hit "You're So Vain" to an anti-Trump advertisement.

More significantly, the tape prefigured the MeToo movement that would explode almost exactly a year later. The conversation about what constitutes consent, about whether powerful men face accountability for their treatment of women, about the cultural excuses made for predatory behavior—all of this was rehearsed in miniature during the October 2016 furor.

The phrase "grab 'em by the pussy" entered the American lexicon. It appeared on protest signs at the Women's March following Trump's inauguration. It was invoked in debates about sexual harassment in workplaces. It became shorthand for a particular kind of masculine entitlement.

An October Surprise That Wasn't

In American political jargon, an "October surprise" refers to a damaging revelation timed to influence an election in its final weeks—late enough that the targeted candidate cannot fully recover but early enough to penetrate public consciousness before voting day.

The Access Hollywood tape was a textbook October surprise. It emerged exactly one month before Election Day. It dominated news coverage for days. It prompted calls for Trump to withdraw from his own party's officials. It appeared, by every historical measure, to be a campaign-ending scandal.

It wasn't.

Donald Trump won the Electoral College and became the 45th president of the United States. He served a full term, was impeached twice, lost his 2020 reelection bid, and as of this writing remains a dominant figure in American politics.

The tape didn't end his career. It didn't even prevent him from winning the election that was supposed to be derailed by its release. What it did do was reveal something about the changed nature of American politics—the declining power of shame, the resilience of partisan identity, the willingness of voters to compartmentalize or rationalize behavior they might have found disqualifying in an earlier era.

The Access Hollywood tape may ultimately be remembered not for what it revealed about Donald Trump—his attitudes toward women had never been particularly hidden—but for what it revealed about the country that heard it and elected him anyway.