Trump’s head-spinningly twisted approach to misdirecting media response to his gaffes just reached a whole new level, but luckily someone is there to call him out on it.
Trump now questions the authenticity of the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape, in which he brags about sexually assaulting women to then-host Billy Bush, according to The New York Times.
The actress he’s talking about in that tape, Arianne Zucker, called out the insanity of the whole situation on Anderson Cooper 360 Monday Night.
“How do you apologize for something and then renege on it?” she asked.
In the hours after the tape was released in October 2016, Trump acknowledged that it was his voice on the tape and “apologized” for his so-called locker room talk.
In a new interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Zucker broke down the President’s latest denials.
“I don’t know how else that could be faked. I mean, unless someone’s planting words in your mouth, that’s the only other way.
But it is puzzling to me. And I was — I was curious. I thought, how do you apologize for something and then renege on it? And that was just in question.”
The Access Hollywood tape has become relevant twice over in recent days.
With the flood of allegations of sexual assault by numerous high profile and powerful men against scores of women that started with the revelations surrounding Harvey Weinstein, many questioned how the President himself had evaded any kind of backlash, given the existence of his own admission on the Access Hollywood tape.
And with the firestorm surrounding alleged pedophile Roy Moore’s Senate campaign in Alabama, all eyes were on the President as high profile Republicans condemned Moore’s candidacy. The President finally did speak out in favor of Moore to television reporters right before taking off for Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving.
Trump cited the fact that Moore “totally denies it” as valid evidence for his strength of character. He also told reporters that “he says it didn’t happen. You have to listen to him also.”
So the burden of proof remains… low.
