Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post wonders why NBC sat on the Trump tape for so long.

Why didn’t NBC News do the basic journalistic work of working through its own company’s archives on Trump months ago?

It may have to do with the split between the entertainment and the news divisions — both “The Apprentice” and “Access Hollywood” are products of NBC’s entertainment side, not its news side. NBC’s news reporters are often excellent — Katy Tur, for example, has covered the Trump campaign with admirable intelligence and assertiveness, and has taken a lot of flak from the campaign for doing so.

NBC’s entertainment division has had a long history with Trump because the network was the home of “The Apprentice,” which made him a reality-TV star. Separately, Trump did hundreds of interviews with NBC for “Access Hollywood.” That means there are two separate caches of Trump-on-tape that could yield news.

Maybe the people in News just don’t talk to the people in Entertainment. Clearly they should have.

One troubling factor is that “Access Hollywood’s” segment on Trump’s horrifyingly lewd RAPEY comments — despite their stunning news value — was not scheduled to appear immediately, a spokeswoman confirmed. That only changed when news of The Post’s imminent article forced producers’ hands; they aired it Friday night, after all.

Why this material was left in the hands of an entertainment show, and not the news division, was something I couldn’t get an answer to on Saturday. And when would it have run? Since the segment wasn’t scheduled for Friday, the earliest possibility on the entertainment magazine show would have been Monday.

After the debate – the only debate moderated by a woman, Sullivan points out.

ay Rosen of New York University told me Saturday that it shouldn’t have taken very long to make the video public.

Because it was NBC’s own recording, there should have been no question about authenticity, and, as he put it, “the tape is the story.” Reaction from the campaign was the only thing left to do. “That’s an hour,” as he put it.

What’s more, NBC’s Billy Bush — a former co-host of “Access Hollywood” and now a co-host of its “Today” show, which is on the news side of NBC — knew about it for 11 years but apparently didn’t see it as newsworthy.

Or didn’t see it as something he wanted to point out to people, given all his sycophantic laughter on that tape, and his nasty “Don’t you want to give him a hug?” when he and Trump left the trailer.

There is significant public interest in knowing the answers to these questions. NBC owes it to the American electorate to answer them clearly.

Without adequate answers from the top, made publicly, it may not be unreasonable to conclude that one of the nation’s largest news companies simply wasn’t doing its job.

Does the tape shed a flattering light on NBC? No it does not.

The news media have had enough time now to grasp that the issue is not that Trump’s remarks were “lewd.” It’s that they were contemptuous, hostile, dehumanizing, and that they boasted of sexual assault.

The BBC for instance.

More senior Republicans have withdrawn support for US presidential candidate Donald Trump after his obscene remarks about women became public.

“Obscene” is not the issue. Pee po belly bum drawers.

One of the Republican support-withdrawers says it when the BBC couldn’t manage to:

New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte said in a statement: “I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women,” she said.

There. It doesn’t take many words. It’s not that he said “pussy,” it’s that he said “you [meaning men, or rather himself] can grab their pussy.” It’s that he said you can assault them and get away with it. The obscene word isn’t “pussy,” it’s “grab.”

CNN has been looking through Trump’s many appearances on the radio show of “shock jock” (i.e. flaming asshole) Howard Stern.

In more than one interview with Stern, Trump took part in conversations about Ivanka Trump’s appearance, including one about the size of her breasts.

In an October 2006 interview, Stern remarks that Ivanka “looks more voluptuous than ever,” and asked if she had gotten breast implants. Trump is willing to engage in the discussion about his own daughter, telling Stern that she did not get implants.

“She’s actually always been very voluptuous,” Trump responds. “She’s tall, she’s almost 6 feet tall and she’s been, she’s an amazing beauty.”

She’s a fine fine hamburger.

In another interview, from September 2004, Stern asks Trump if he can call Ivanka “a piece of ass,” to which Trump responds in the affirmative.

“My daughter is beautiful, Ivanka,” says Trump.

“By the way, your daughter,” says Stern.

“She’s beautiful,” responds Trump.

“Can I say this? A piece of ass,” Stern responds.

“Yeah,” says Trump.

Fine hamburger.

In his interviews with Stern, Trump discussed leaving women after a certain age and dating younger women.

In a 2002 appearance, Trump calls 30 “a perfect age.”

“Until she’s 35,” a co-host interjects.

“What is it at 35? It’s called check-out time,” Trump responds.

Hamburger overcooked.

They graded women. (I wonder if they ever graded themselves. Hahaha no I don’t; of course they didn’t. The eater grades the hamburger, the hamburger doesn’t grade the eater.)

“She’s hot, she’s hot though right?,” Stern asked Trump of [Elin] Nordegren, after Trump said he’s talked to [Tiger] Woods since his sex scandal broke in the news.

‘Yeah, she’s fine,” said Trump.

“You don’t think she’s that hot?,” Stern asked.

“It depends by what standard,” Trump replied. “What standard are you judging?”

“I have a very high standard,” added Trump. “Howard knows, because he got me in a lot of trouble once, he went over a list of 15 supermodels. You remember the list of supermodels. And he’d ask me, ‘how was she?’ How was she?’ And I was married at the time, you know this was not a good question to be asking.”

“I think she’s good,” Trump added of Nordegren’s attractiveness.

“No, I’d say she’s a solid nine, solid nine yeah,” Trump said, when asked how he’d rate her.

When Stern suggested to him he should do a show where he just rates women, Trump said, “That may be the best idea of all I would say I’m the all-time judge, don’t forget, I own the Miss Universe pageant.”

“Mr. Trump I’m asking you directly, is her ass too big?” Stern asked.

“No,” Trump replied.

“Body perfect?” Stern asked.

“Very nice,” responded Trump.

“She’s very nice, is she a 10, you know what a 10 is?” Trump asked.

It’s whatever you say it is, Mr Trump. You’re the judge. Women are just so much meat.

McCain has dumped Trump.

John McCain has withdrawn his endorsement of Donald Trump. Notably, McCain explains his decision not by criticizing the language or tone the Trump used in the Washington Post video, but by citing the conduct Trump was describing. McCain does not shy away from calling that conduct “sexual assault.” Here’s McCain’s full statement, which also mentions Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel, the Khan family, and the Central Park Five:

Trump is belching out so much evil we can’t keep up. There was also the fact that he made a point of telling CNN that the Central Park 5 were too so guilty.

Wading into a racially-charged case from his past, Donald Trump indicated that the “Central Park Five” were guilty, despite [the fact that they were] officially exonerated by DNA evidence decades after a notorious 1989 rape case.

“They admitted they were guilty,” Trump said to CNN in a statement.

“The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”

The five men were convicted as teenagers after implicating each other under intense questioning over a brutal sexual assault on a jogger that dominated the tabloids. Defenders said they were coerced into confessing and all five were later cleared by DNA evidence and a separate confession in 2002 from another criminal who took credit for the assault.

New York paid them $41 million in compensation.

Trump took out a full-page ad at the time of the crime calling for New York to reinstate the death penalty in response.

The case was notable for its racial politics: Four of the Central Park Five were black and one was Latino while the victim was a white banker.

He’s a terrible man.

Jonah Goldberg on Twitter:

Annoying responses: 1) All men talk like this (nope) 2) This is an aberration for Trump (nope) 3) No one could have predicted this (nope).

Matthew Yglesias:

It’s too bad for GOP elected officials that there was literally no way they could have known before today that Trump was a gross misogynist.

Ariel Edwards-Levy:

I’m calling for a total and complete shutdown of Donald Trump interacting with women until we can figure out what is going on.

Jonathan Chait:

I am working on a pet theory that Donald Trump is an extremely bad person.

Will Rahn:

BUSH COMPOUND, DECEMBER 2015 — JEB: We must stop Trump. Any ideas?

GWB: Nope

GHWB: Sorry no

BILLY: Nope, no idea, nothing, zilch, zero

James Hamblin at the Atlantic points out that “graphic” sex talk is a good thing. That’s not what Trump was doing.

The thing about the Republican’s words isn’t that they’re explicit or graphic. It’s that they’re misogynistic, coercive, abusive, and dehumanizing. And as my colleague David Graham notes, illegal: The candidate is describing forcing himself on women, bragging that they’re disinclined to object because of a power structure on which he knowingly capitalizes.

Framing this as lewd, even extremely so, is a reminder of the frequent reluctance to name sexual assault. Explicit conversations are a different thing, a part of life central to mature sexuality.

Precisely. Mutual (in other words consensual) sex talk is a very different thing from what Trump was doing. He was talking about women the way he would talk about a hamburger if he hadn’t eaten in hours. Mutuality had nothing to do with it. The woman is a thing, with legs that make him shout “Whoa! Whoa!” and a mouth he’ll just start kissing and a pussy he can grab. He’s the one who grabs, and she’s the thing who is grabbed.

Like Trump, ever more Americans seem to feel that masculinity (as they understand it, narrowly defined) is threatened. It’s threatened specifically by “PC culture,” often used as a sweeping indictment of any attempt at decency. My colleague Molly Ball spoke to some of these men recently at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, men with chin-strap beards and novelty t-shirts calling Hillary Clinton a bitch because “it’s funny.”

Some guy on Facebook yesterday posted about Trump’s rapey blurts, but he prefaced what he said with “Sorry, ladies, but this is how men talk.” No it isn’t. It’s how a lot of men talk, but it’s not how men in general talk. We don’t have to normalize it and we certainly don’t have to put up with it.

The Guardian has a big collection. A yuuuuje collection.

Donald Trump’s apology for the latest in a string of controversial comments about women came as no surprise to the political strategist and fellow Republican Ana Navarro. “He is not fit to be the president, he is not fit to be the Republican nominee, he is not fit to be called a man,” Navarro said on CNN. “How many times does he get away with saying something misogynistic before we call him a misogynist? How many times does he get away with saying something sexist before we acknowledge that he is a sexist? It is time to condemn the man.”

But what about free speech? Heterogeneity of opinion? Vigorous dissent? Isn’t Trump just part of the rich pageant of democracy?

Certainly not in my view, but there are a lot of people who talk about that kind of thing without explaining how they draw the line.

Nadia Khomami goes through the familiar examples, then gets to some less familiar ones.

Trump has regularly targeted Arianna Huffington, the editor and co-founder of the Huffington Post, as being “unattractive both inside and out”. When the New York Times columnist Gail Collins wrote about rumours of his bankruptcy, he sent her a copy of her own article with her picture circled and “the face of a dog!” written across it. More recently, when his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery for yanking Michelle Fields’ arm as she tried to ask questions, Trump was quick to accuse the reporter of changing her story.

He has also maintained a brutal verbal campaign against comedian Rosie O’Donnell. In 2006, during an appearance on Entertainment Tonight, Trump said she was “disgusting, both inside and out. If you take a look at her, she’s a slob. How does she even get on television? If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie. I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’ We’re all a little chubby but Rosie’s just worse than most of us”.

The verbal assault did not stop there, as he continued to attack her personal life and offend the LGBT community at the same time: “Rosie’s a person who’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend. Why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?” he said.

As I’ve mentioned all too often…he’s indistinguishable from those vulgar people who live on Twitter and type insults all day.

Verbal indiscretions aside, perhaps what many fear most is the more serious allegations about Trump’s conduct towards women. Jill Harth, a woman at the centre of sexual assault allegations against the billionaire, spoke for the first time in July about her personal experience with him. The makeup artist has accused Trump in a lawsuit of cornering and groping her in his daughter’s bedroom. She told the Guardian that she stood by her charges, which her lawyers described in the lawsuit as “attempted ‘rape’”.

Shortly after Trump announced his bid for president it emerged that his first wife, Ivana, had alleged in testimony during their divorce that he had raped her in 1989. When the allegation resurfaced in the Daily Beast, a lawyer and aide to Trump told a reporter that the claim was moot because “you cannot rape your spouse”. In a statement issued through Trump’s lawyers, Ivana later said she did not want “rape” to be “interpreted in a literal or criminal sense”.

The shame of a nation.

Robby Soave at Reason says Trump is no libertarian but a self-entitled authoritarian.

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them,” Trump toldAccess Hollywood‘s Billy Bush, according to an audio tape leaked to The Washington Post on Friday. “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 them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Emphasis mine, because, well, you can’t do that. Grabbing an unsuspecting and unwilling person’s genitals is a criminal act of sexual assault under any definition of sexual assault. Trump is evidently proud of the fact that he wielded his wealth and star power as a weapon to help him abuse women—to kiss and grope them without their permission. This is violence, full stop.

Trump has a lot of company though in thinking it’s just something guys get to do, because they want to – it’s just hijinks, it’s boys will be boys, it’s “copping a feel.” It’s normalized.

Some people might be tempted to write off Trump’s comments to Bush as empty boasts. They would be utter fools to do so. The New York Times, in fact, has just run an interview with a woman who says she was given the Trump treatment by the reality TV star. This is not an isolated incident: there is ample evidence that Trump has physically harmed women. And he has now admitted on tape that he feels license to mistreat them.

To be absolutely clear: there is nothing ambiguous about Trump’s stated (and demonstrated) approach to women: it’s battery, at a minimum.

And, even though it’s looking more unlikely every hour, it’s still possible that he could be elected president of the US. It’s disgraceful. It’s truly disgraceful that none of this stopped him until (perhaps) now.

Some months ago, I described Trump as the least libertarian Republican presidential candidate in decades—in no small part because he displays zero respect for people’s lives, rights, and property. His treatment of women is only the most obviously disturbing manifestation of the philosophy of brutishness and authoritarianism that characterizes his entire worldview.

No man whose overriding ideology is that he gets to do whatever he wants—to whomever he wants—should be president.

That’s an aspect of libertarianism I can respect.

H/t Helen Dale

Trump stayed up late last night to do an “apology” video which briskly morphed into an attack on Bill Clinton, who isn’t running for president. (This is, though, one of many reasons I detest this new idea that relatives of former presidents have an inside track to the office. I have never thought it was a good idea for Hillary Clinton to leverage her husband’s stint as president into her shot at it.) I haven’t watched it yet…and don’t look forward to it.

CNN sums up the current state of play.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, saying he was “sickened” by Trump’s comments, announced Friday night that the GOP presidential nominee would no longer attend a Republican event in Wisconsin at which the two were slated to appear on Saturday. Multiple sources told CNN that Trump was asked not to come by Ryan, and one source said the message was delivered via intermediaries.

“Dear Donald – please just stay away. Paul.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus condemned Trump’s remark in a briefly, tersely-worded statement.

“No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever,” Priebus wrote.

Journalists covering a Toledo, Ohio, campaign stop by Pence were ushered out of a restaurant soon after the story broke. The press was supposed to cover Pence looking at a wall of signed hot dogs, including one by Trump, but were later told they couldn’t record the moment.

Everyone was too busy throwing up to deal with the journalists.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican who recently said he would vote for Trump,called for Trump to drop out of the race.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who over the summer had said he would vote for Trump, withdrew his support Friday night. So did House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican.

Even Terry Gainer, a former US Senate sergeant at arms who rarely makes political comments, emailed CNN to say, “It is not just woman who should shun Trump. Any gentleman, every husband, each father of a daughter, bother of a sister and sons must be outraged.

“How do I explain this to my granddaughters? If only a Republican leader would stand and exhibit a profile in courage.”

And staffers, too.

Reactions from GOP staffers and advisers to Trump ranged from astonished to apoplectic.
A close adviser to Trump told CNN the story is “flat out appalling” and at this point, they can’t even begin to guess whether Trump can come back from this.

“This should have never happened. I wish it had never happened. I think I know that men talk this way sometimes, but it’s nothing I would ever want to hear or condone or approve of,” the adviser said. “My reaction is — it’s appalling. It’s just flat out appalling.”

The adviser also said Trump’s apology does not go far enough.

“Doing anything other than to say it was a grievous error and he apologizes would be a mistake,” the adviser said. “I would take it a step further and own to the words as being offensive — not ‘if.'”

The adviser, clearly exasperated, added: “Another day in Trump world … I hate it.”

So do we, and boy do we not want to live in it for four years.

Of course the staffers and advisers could always quit.

Ashley Judd on Twitter:

I never heard him "apologize" for talking to me & others about his family member's spouse, and especially her breasts. THIS IS WHO HE IS. https://t.co/W9RH1otj0t

— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) October 7, 2016

The Guardian has a live updating page on Trump’s contemptuous rapey remarks about women. An hour ago they posted what Corey Lewandowski had to say:

Even Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager and one of the staunchest supporters of the businessman, has refused to defend the comments.

“Look, I think what this comes down to, and this is not a surprise, is clearly this is not how women should be spoken about. But we’re not choosing a Sunday school teacher.

“And I want to be very clear about this, what we know about Donald Trump this was 12 years ago, this audio tape, and does not reflect or bring to mind the Donald Trump that I’ve spent 18 months with traveling. I’ve never heard anything like this out of him.

“And so, let me say, We’re appointing a leader, we’re electing a leader. We’re not electing a Sunday school teacher.”

It’s not a matter of “Sunday school teacher” you sexist piece of shit. It’s a matter of a man who has contempt for half of the population. We’re not some afterthought, like the dill pickle vote.

Sadowski.ying rapey Trump is not a Sunday school teacher is itself misogynist. What does Sunday school teacher suggest? A prissy prim “sex negative” woman, probably one too old and ugly for Trump to want to grab her pussy.

So fuck off, Corey Lewandowski.

Tomorrow’s Daily News:

Emily Crockett at Vox on Trump and rape culture.

The Washington Post’s headline describes Trump’s comments as “extremely lewd.” But they’re a lot worse than that.

This may or may not actually be typical “locker room banter” for some men. But one thing is clear: It’s an explicit description of sexual assault.

Whether or not Trump is bragging for effect or machismo, he is saying that he thinks it’s no big deal to grab or kiss a woman in a sexual manner — either by moving too fast for her to consent or resist or by exploiting his power until “they let you do it.”

It is sexual assault to “just start kissing” a woman, much less “grab” her “pussy,” and not “even wait” — in other words, to act without warning or consent.

It is sexual assault to exploit your power over a woman for the purpose of sexual favors.

This isn’t a joke. This isn’t even just a much worse version of the usual sleaze or insults that we’re used to on Trump and women. This is serious.

It is, but so are insults. Insults aren’t “a joke” either. Trump isn’t just joshing around when he calls one woman a fat pig or talks about another bleeding from her wherever. He’s expressing contempt and hatred, to a vast audience. That shit is serious. Hatred and contempt are contagious. We’re already saturated with hatred and contempt for women; Trump’s adding to it is no joke and no trivia.

It’s serious because this kind of cavalier treatment of sexual assault is the definition of rape culture. When men see sexual assault as a punchline, or even something to brag about, they take it less seriously when they see or hear about it happening, and they take women less seriously who talk about it.

Yes, and hatred and contempt play into that too.

Le tout Facebook is talking about the Washington Post’s new story about Trump.

They got possession of a video that has Trump talking on a hot microphone.

The video captures Trump talking with Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” on a bus with Access Hollywood written across the side. They were arriving on the set of “Days of Our Lives” to tape a segment about Trump’s upcoming cameo on the soap opera.

I recommend playing the video to get the full flavor – the laughter, the boasting, the time someone says “it’s good” and you’re not sure if “it” is a woman or not.

The tape obtained by the Post includes audio of Bush and Trump’s conversation inside the bus, as well as audio and video once they emerge from it to begin shooting the segment.

In that audio, Trump discusses a failed attempt to seduce a woman, whose full name is not given in the video.

“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place. The tape was recorded several months after he married his third wife, Melania.

“Whoa,” another voice said.

“I did try and fuck her. She was married,” Trump says.

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“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.”

Then, apparently, they spot Arianne Zucker outside, the actress who is waiting to escort them into the soap opera set.

“Your girl’s hot as shit, in the purple,” says Bush, who’s now a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show.

“Whoa!” Trump says. “Whoa!”

“I’ve gotta use some tic tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says.“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.”

Coarse laughter from Bush.

“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.

“Grab them by the pussy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

But there’s no one who has more respect for women than he does.