ADDS MELANIA TRUMP’S STATEMENT
NEW YORK (AA) – U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump apologized early Saturday in a video message, brushing off a 2005 audio and video recording that shows him making obscene remarks about women as “nothing more than a distraction”.
The video, revealed by The Washington Post, shows a conversation captured on a hot mic between Trump and TV host Billy Bush as they arrived at a soap opera set.
Trump is heard in the video talk about preying on and groping women, asserting that “when you are a star they let you do it… You can do anything, whatever you want.”
Trump says he “aggressively moved on” a married woman, who is not identified in the video, in hopes of sleeping with her. Then, as they get ready to meet actress Arianne Zucker for Trump’s cameo in the soap opera Days of Our Lives, Trump says: “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet.”
The NBC show Access Hollywood revealed that the woman in question was Nancy O’Dell, a former host whom Trump reportedly tried to fire two years after his sexual advances.
The Republican candidate, who will be facing his rival Hillary Clinton in a second presidential debate on Sunday, offered an off-hand apology shortly after the video emerged, but mounting criticism, including from his own party, forced him to issue a more substantive message.
“Anyone who knows me knows that these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize,” he said. “I pledge to be a better man tomorrow, and will never ever let you down.”
Democratic presidential hopeful Clinton tweeted: “Women have the power to stop Trump”.
The Republican candidate’s wife Melania said his remarks were “unacceptable and offensive to me”, while urging voters to accept his apology.
“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 and the world,” Melania Trump, a 45-year-old former model and the mogul’s third wife, said in a statement.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, a prominent Republican who endorsed Trump, said in a written statement he was “sickened by what I heard”.
“Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified,” he said, urging the candidate to treat the issue “with the seriousness it deserves” while announcing that Trump would not attend a campaign event in Wisconsin where he is running for a House seat he has held since 1999.
Other high-profile Republicans were also quick to distance themselves. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called Trump’s comments “repugnant, and unacceptable in any circumstance”.
“As the father of three daughters, I strongly believe that Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere, and take full responsibility for the utter lack of respect for women shown in his comments on that tape,” McConnell said in a written statement.
Trump, who owned beauty pageant company Miss Universe for a decade, has gone on record over the last two decades making derogatory comments on female journalists, politicians, TV personalities and models, calling them “piggy”, “slob”, and “dog”, attacking them for being “ugly”, and objectifying them based on their appearance.
