WASHINGTON // Republican candidate Donald Trump defied growing demands for him to quit the US presidential race yesterday after he was forced to apologise for crude and aggressive sexual remarks he made a decade ago.
“Zero chance I’ll quit,” he said. “I’d never withdraw. I’ve never withdrawn in my life.”
Nevertheless, as Mr Trump prepares for tonight’s second TV debate with Hillary Clinton, his campaign is once again in disarray and his support among Republican leaders, already brittle, is beginning to crack.
Many party officials refused to answer their phones yesterday, and others cancelled scheduled television interviews to avoid the subject altogether.
“It’s over,” said Republican strategist Terry Sullivan, who led Florida senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. “The only good news is that in 30 days Trump will be back to being just a former reality TV star like the Kardashians, and Republican candidates across America will no longer be asked to respond to his stupid remarks.”
The latest “stupid remarks” came in a video from 2005 released by The Washington Post on Friday, in which Mr Trump uses vulgar language to tell of kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, boasting that “when you’re a star, they let you do it”.
In the three-minute video, Mr Trump uses expletives while describing his attempts to seduce a married woman.
“I moved on her very heavily,” he says. “I took her out furniture shopping. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married.”
The woman is not identified but the footage was taken some months after Mr Trump married his third wife, Melania.
He talks about how he may react to the glamorous actress who is waiting to meet him on the set of a TV soap opera.
“I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Mr Trump says to Billy Bush, the host of a show called Access Hollywood. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet.
“I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Yesterday, Mr Trump, 70, released his own video, apologising for his language and attitude.
“I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone I’m not,” he said. “I’ve said and done things I regret.” And he insisted the video was not a true reflection of him. “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologise. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow.”
The video emerged just 48 hours before the second presidential debate today, giving his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton plenty of fresh ammunition to attack his misogyny.
It is the first time in the 16-month campaign that the Republican candidate has issued an apology. But it has come too late for some of his fellow Republicans who decided that enough was enough — and said so publicly. House Speaker Paul Ryan, the nation’s top elected Republican, led a chorus of party criticism of their flag-bearer.
“I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified,” said Mr Ryan. “I hope Mr Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that the has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”
“I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president,” said Jason Chaffetz, a Republican congressman from Utah. “It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine.”
Other Republicans including congresswoman Barbara Comstock, congressman Mike Coffman and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who ran for president in 2012, demanded Trump exit the race. Several Republican senators, including John McCain, the party’s presidential nominee in 2008, also joined in the condemnation.
“He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences,” said Mr McCain. Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said: “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.”
It was all a step too far even for Reince Prebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, who has defended Mr Trump through other gaffe-ridden incidents. “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever,” he said.
Mr Ryan also banned Mr Trump from attending a political event with him yesterday in Wisconsin. Mr Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, attended instead. Mr Pence had to be hustled out of a restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, when news of the video broke so the press could not quiz him about it.
But Mr Trump’s contrition soon reverted to attacking his political rival. “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close,” he said. “Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked and shamed his victims.”
Mrs Clinton — who has often been the subject of Mr Trump’s barbs — called the video “horrific.” She wrote on Twitter: “We cannot allow this man to become president”, and her running mate, senator Tim Kaine said the video “makes me sick to my stomach”.
Billy Bush, who appears in the video with Mr Trump admitted he now felt “embarrassed and ashamed”. Now the co-host of the Today show on NBC, he said: “It’s no excuse, but this happened 11 years ago. I was younger, less mature and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry.”
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
* Reuters