Trump STANDS BY Access Hollywood tape: Refuses to take back ‘grab them by the p****’ comments because ‘for a million years this is the way it’s been’
- Collins pressed Trump on the infamous 2005 tape that came up in Carroll trial
- ‘I can’t take it back because it happens to be true,’ Trump responded
- Read DailyMail.com’s coverage of CNN’s town hall with Trump HERE
Donald Trump stood by the infamous comments he made on the 2005 Access Hollywood tape and says he won’t take them back.
CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins pressed him on the infamous ‘grab them by the p****’ tape that came up during E. Jean Carroll’s rape and defamation trial.
A New York jury on Tuesday found the former President sexually abused and defamed the writer after she accused him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman bathroom in 1996.
She was awarded $5million in damages in a case that Trump claimed was part of a ‘witch hunt’.
‘There was a taped deposition of you from October, and you defended the comments you made on that ‘Access Hollywood’ tape about being able to grab women how you want. Do you stand by those comments,’ Collins asked.
Donald Trump stood by the infamous comments he made on the 2005 Access Hollywood tape and says he won’t take them back
CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins pressed him on the infamous ‘grab them by the p****’ tape that came up during E. Jean Carroll’s rape and defamation trial
‘I said women let you, I didn’t say you grab… I said women let — you know, you didn’t use that word — but if you look, women let you,’ Trump said. ‘Now, they said will you take that back? I said, look, for a million years this is the way it’s been.
‘I want to be honest this is the way it’s been,’ he added. ‘You would like me to take that back. I can’t take it back because it happens to be true,’ Trump added.
The comments came after Collins also pressed Trump about Tuesday’s verdict in New York that found he was liable for the sexual assault of Carroll at a department story in the 1990s. Trump has denied the charge. The town hall was his first public appearance since the verdict, where he ws ordered to pay $5 million in damages.
‘What do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?,’ Collins asked him.
‘There weren’t too many of them because my numbers just – they went up,’ Trump said as the audience cheered and applauded.
‘I want to be honest this is the way it’s been,’ he added. ‘You would like me to take that back. I can’t take it back because it happens to be true,’ Trump added during his comments on the tape
The former president repeated his claim he didn’t know Carroll and then proceeded to insult her repeatedly – accusing her of ‘hanky panky,’ claiming she has a cat called ‘Vagina’ and that she called her husband an ‘ape.’ He slammed U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who was appointed to the job by President Bill Clinton.
‘This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is. I had a picture taken years ago with her and her husband, nice guy John Johnson. He was a newscaster, very nice. She called him an ape, happens to be African American. Called him an ape,’ Trump claimed.
‘The judge wouldn’t allow us to put that in. Her dog or her cat was named Vagina, the judge wouldn’t allow to put that in,’ he added.
‘We had a horrible Clinton appointed judge. He allowed her to put everything in,’ he said.
Trump also said of Carroll: ‘What kind of a woman meet somebody and brings them up and within minutes you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, I don’t know if she was married then or not. John Johnson, I feel sorry for you.
The 70-minute town hall was tense from the start and raced from topic to topic at breakneck speed. Neither Trump nor Collins – who famously sparred when he was president and she was a White House reporter – gave an inch, engaging in repeated back and forths on a number of subjects.
The two of them even got up out of their chairs to go at each other in a head on to head on collison of Trump claims and Collins snap backs that made for fiery TV. Voters in the hall didn’t get an opportunity to ask many questions amid the two’s tête-à-tête.
Biden got in a swipe at Trump after the event, posting on Twitter: ‘Do you want four more years of that?’
Trump lost his temper with Collins when she pressed him as to why he had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida, calling her a ‘nasty person.’
The former president argued he was allowed to have the documents under the Presidential Records Act.
‘That’s not what the Presidential Record Act says,’ Collins said, adding she has read the whole law.
Trump then claimed Barack Obama and Joe Biden had documents – Obama did not. Biden handed his over when he found them.
‘They didn’t raid the house of Joe Biden, they didn’t raid Obama,’ Trump said.
Collins pressed him on the issue, telling him Biden didn’t ignore a subpoena on the issue like Trump did and asked him why he didn’t turn over the requested material.
‘Can I talk? Are you ready?,’ Trump said amid her aggressive questioning.
‘I would like for you to answer the question. That’s why I asked it,’ Collins said.
‘You’re a nasty person, I’ll tell you,’ Trump told her.
Collins ignored his insult and told him: ‘Can you answer why you held on to the documents?’
Their wild exchange continued as Collins pressed him: ‘Do you still have any classified documents?’
‘Are you ready?,’ Trump asked her.
‘Do you?’ she pressed.
‘No, no, I have no classified documents,’ he said but added: ‘They become automatically declassified when I took them.’
He also argued he had every right to take them.