He said it
I was wondering if Billy Bush was going to say anything about Trump’s recent claims that “we think the voice wasn’t mine” – the voice on the Access Hollywood tape that is, the one we listened to repeatedly weeks before the piece of dung was elected. I was wondering if Billy Bush was going to say hey I was there and yes he did too so say it.
He said it. “Grab ‘em by the pussy.”
Of course he said it. And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real.
We now know better.
Recently I sat down and read an article dating from October of 2016; it was published days after my departure from NBC, a time when I wasn’t processing anything productively. In it, the author reviewed the various firsthand accounts about Mr. Trump that, at that point, had come from 20 women.
Some of what Natasha Stoynoff, Rachel Crooks, Jessica Leeds and Jill Harth alleged involved forceful kissing. Ms. Harth said he pushed her up against a wall, with his hands all over her, trying to kiss her.
“He was relentless,” she said. “I didn’t know how to handle it.” Her story makes the whole “better use some Tic Tacs” and “just start kissing them” routine real. I believe her.
Kristin Anderson said that Mr. Trump reached under her skirt and “touched her vagina through her underwear” while they were at a New York nightclub in the 1990s. That makes the “grab ‘em by the pussy” routine real. I believe her.
It’s not as if it seems bafflingly out of character, is it. It’s hard to think of anyone for whom it would seem more in character.
In 2005, I was in my first full year as a co-anchor of the show “Access Hollywood” on NBC. Mr. Trump, then on “The Apprentice,” was the network’s biggest star.
The key to succeeding in my line of work was establishing a strong rapport with celebrities. I did that, and was rewarded for it. My segments with Donald Trump when I was just a correspondent were part of the reason I got promoted.
NBC tripled my salary and paid for my moving van from New York to Los Angeles.
Was I acting out of self-interest? You bet I was. Was I alone? Far from it. With Mr. Trump’s outsized viewership back in 2005, everybody from Billy Bush on up to the top brass on the 52nd floor had to stroke the ego of the big cash cow along the way to higher earnings.
NBC did this to us. I like Maddow, but she doesn’t make up for that.
“I know the people who were there can affirm that Trump said it. I know Trump didn’t deny saying it at the time. I know the women’s accounts that cast light on his remarks are credible. But, I just don’t know. Now he says he doesn’t think he said it, so I believe him. Also, he’s making America great again.”
—Red America
This short statement is so much more articulate than anything Trump has said. Ever. Trump really lowers the bar. Buries it, rather.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1739057192779401/?type=3&theater
This needs explaining
When you do maybe I’ll cease to feel so damned alienated from the bulk of the human race and stop referring to it as “your species” in conversation. Friends (both of them) point out that I’m a member too. I don’t believe it (/Victor Meldrew)
“If you’re a star, they let you do it.’
The whole of the current exposure of harassment and misogyny, encapsulated in a single phrase. And in this culture, its true.
What bugs me about Trump’s denial is not just the fact that he would lie so brazenly, but moreso the cowardice in the way he worded the denial. “We think the voice wasn’t mine” – you think it isn’t your voice? And who the fuck is this ‘we’? He can’t even own his own denial of reality, he has to weasel word his own lie to make it seem that others are making it.