The ‘Access Hollywood’ video cemented Trump’s air of invincibility
On Friday morning, Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan revisited a moment from the 2016 campaign when a Washington Post article felt as if it might end Trump’s presidential ambitions.
The bombshell scoop from reporter David A. Fahrenthold revealed the existence of the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump told a giggling Billy Bush, who at the time of the 2005 recording was a host on the “Access Hollywood” show.
The syndicated show, owned by NBCUniversal, had located the Trump recording in its archives and was preparing its own story. Tipped off by “Access Hollywood,” NBC News was also aware of the tape and was preparing a story, which it planned to run after the entertainment show aired the recording, The Post has previously reported.
The Post article, which published on a Friday afternoon in October, drew more than 100,000 readers simultaneously at one point - then the most for any article in the website’s history - and briefly crashed the servers of the newspaper’s internal tracking system.
Fahrenthold wrote about the process of breaking the story and described the email he sent to Hope Hicks, who was then Trump’s spokeswoman, that day.
“1.)Does Mr. Trump have any reason to believe that it is not authentic, and that he did not say these things? 2.)Does Mr. Trump recall that conversation? If so, does he believe there is anything that was *not* captured in this transcript that would make him look better? 3.)Does Mr. Trump have any regrets about this conversation?”
In court Friday, testifying for the prosecution, Hicks described how she had forwarded the email to other campaign leaders. Prosecutors then showed an email from Hicks in which she wrote to several senior members of the campaign: “Need to hear the tape to be sure” and “Deny, deny, deny.”
Asked about those comments, she chuckled and said that the latter strategy - denial - would become “more difficult” after realizing that the email from Fahrenthold included a transcript of the recording.
The publication of the video cost Bush his new job on NBC’s “Today” show and, as now former aide Hicks testified Friday, threw the Trump campaign into panic as Republicans roundly condemned Trump’s comments and distanced themselves from his campaign.
But the video’s reception in Republican circles set up a powerful dynamic that helped establish Trump’s stranglehold over the party. At first, his closest allies, including his own running mate, Mike Pence, and the head of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, both disavowed Trump’s comments, as did scores of politicians across the spectrum. Paul D. Ryan, then the Republican speaker of the House, declared himself “sickened” by Trump’s words. Ryan canceled a joint campaign appearance with Trump that had been scheduled for the following day. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush called the comments “reprehensible.” Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said they were “egregious.” Ben Carson declared them “unacceptable.” Bush, Rubio and Carson had battled Trump for the Republican nomination.
As Trump’s inner circle gathered to plot his next move, Priebus told him he had a choice: to lose in a landslide or step aside in favor of another Republican candidate with a chance to win.
But Trump didn’t step aside, and after issuing a weak apology, he emerged from Trump Tower the following day to greet his cheering supporters.
“It was the most high-profile time we had seen something bad happen with Trump, and Republicans weigh whether they should distance themselves from him,” said Tim Miller, who was then serving as Jeb Bush’s communications director and has since become a Trump critic. “A few days later, they all got back in line.”
The dynamic showed how “pliable” the Republican political establishment would be to Trump, Miller said. But it also established a myth about Trump’s unshakable support, a storyline that media coverage of Trump seemed to bolster, Miller added.
Years later, a similar dynamic played out after a much larger event: the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Immediately after, Republican politicians condemned Trump’s role in the insurrection. But as time passed those objections fell away, and early this year, polling showed that more than 7 in 10 Republicans said that too much has been made of the attack and that it is “time to move on.”