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In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Billy Bush is speaking out after President Donald Trump tried to deny that he was the one behind the Access Hollywood tape.
“He said it,” Bush said, definitively.
“Of course he said it,” Bush wrote, going on to recall how the others on the bus reacted. “And we laughed along, without a single doubt that this was hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator. Along with Donald Trump and me, there were seven other guys present on the bus at the time, and every single one of us assumed we were listening to a crass standup act. He was performing. Surely, we thought, none of this was real.”
“We now know better,” Bush added.
Bush recalled how he could hear the truth of the infamous tape when women began to come forward accusing Trump of sexual assault.
Trump had said that he would “just start kissing” women, and that reflected in Jill Harth‘s story of being forcibly kissed and pushing against a wall.
Trump had said that he would “grab [women] by the p***y,” and that reflected in Kristin Anderson‘s story of Trump reaching under her skirt to touch her genitals.
“I believe her,” Bush said of these accounts.
“President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history, reportedly telling allies, including at least one United States senator, that the voice on the tape is not his. This has hit a raw nerve in me,” Bush wrote, adding, “I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention. This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to years of power abuse and sexual misconduct. Its leader is wantonly poking the bear.”
In the piece, Bush admitted openly that he was “acting out of self-interest” during the “Access Hollywood” tape, writing, “None of us were guilty of knowingly enabling our future president. But all of us were guilty of sacrificing a bit of ourselves in the name of success.”
Bush then addressed the growing movement concerning sexual assault and sexual harassment in our culture and wrote, “Today is about reckoning and reawakening, and I hope it reaches all the guys on the bus.”