Donald Trump apologized for a gaffe in which he was caught on tape making lewd remarks about trying to sleep with a married woman, saying, “I pledge to be a better man tomorrow.”
Trump said in a taped message he posted on Facebook on Friday night:
“I’ve never said I’m a perfect person. I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today in this more than decade old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.”
He added: “I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never, ever let you down.”
The Washington Post published a tape of Trump boasting to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about kissing, groping and having sex with women, saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do anything … I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” he said. “Grab ’em by the p–y.”
Prior to Trump’s taped apology, New York Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that GOP leaders frantically met and talked about “the idea that the rules don’t allow the party to have leaders ask Donald Trump to drop out, so that the only way the ticket would change is if Donald Trump voluntarily stepped down.”
Also discussed, according to Alcindor, the possibility that Mike Pence would be the new nominee. Tuesday’s debate between vice presidential candidates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence scored points for the GOP ticket. Trump’s running mate came off so well that a poll showed many Republican voters wished that Pence was in the top spot rather than Trump. Pence also now tops the list for whom Republicans would like to see as their nominee in 2020.
MSNBC Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin told O’Donnell: “Some are saying tonight, given the nature of the remarks, given Trump’s current standing, that some very senior Republicans would rather take a chance on a long-shot write-in campaign than to go through the toughest version of what they’ve gone through for months, which is Trump saying something outrageous and they’re asked to defend it.”
Although Halperin said that the smartest thing to do, as long shot as it would be, would be to urge Donald Trump to step down as the nominee. As it’s been suggested, there is no appetite for that in Trump’s camp.”
Trump called the furor raised by the leaked tape “nothing more than a distraction” from his rival Hillary Clinton: “This is nothing more than a distraction from the important issues we are facing today,” he said, observing that Bill Clinton was more abusive to women in the past, and that Hillary Clinton “bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.” He promised to discuss this more “in the coming days.”