Howard Stern, who considers himself a friend of Trump, is speaking out for the first time about the controversial statements the GOP presidential nominee has made about women. Donald Trump and his appearances on the Howard Stern radio show has come back to haunt him. Trump and his rating scale for women’s appearances, his sex life, and his position on the Iraq war have become fodder for election-season discussion. The shock jock considers Trump his friend and says he refuses to replay the interviews with Trump because it would be a “betrayal.”
“Donald Trump did the show in an effort to be entertaining and have fun with us… I fully knew what I was doing when I interviewed Trump. I knew I had a guy who loved to talk about sex.… I had a guy who loved to evaluate women on a scale of 1 to 10. These are avenues I went down because I knew it would entertain the audience.”
Howard Stern says he won’t release potentially embarrassing recordings of Trump’s sexual banter on his radio show https://t.co/gqjYVll5xU
— New York Post (@nypost) October 18, 2016
Stern, 62, is a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton and has interviewed the Democratic presidential nominee many times over the years. Yet, the self-proclaimed “King of All Media” says he had no intention to tarnish Trump’s character in the interviews, it was all in good fun. On his Sirius radio show, Howard made it clear he will not play the Trump tapes, which can be found here .
“Why don’t I play all the tapes? I have to tell you why. I feel Donald Trump did the show in an effort to be entertaining and have fun with us and I feel like it would be a betrayal to any of our guests if I sat there and played them now where people are attacking him.”
Stern, who built his career on taboo talk, is still taken aback by Trump’s open sexual banter on his radio show. Stern is shocked the recordings from his show didn’t surface earlier, according to the Los Angeles Times .
“I said, ‘Why are you doing this?… Why would a guy with billions of dollars [run for president]?… Don’t you know what they’re gonna do to you? Don’t you know they’re gonna open up everything?’”
Stern then weighed in on the Access Hollywood videotape that emerged in which Trump says he’s free to kiss and grope women without their consent due to his celebrity status.
Trump dismissed his comments to former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush as “locker room banter” — but they crossed the line even for Stern.
Stern, who regularly books strippers and porn stars on his show, was set back by Trump’s comments to Billy Bush.
“I have never been in the room when someone has said, ‘Grab them by the p***y,” said Stern, repeating the phrase Trump used in the 2005 recording. “No one’s ever advocated going that step where you get a little bit, ‘Hey I’m going to invade someone’s space.’”
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Stern then somewhat defended Trump, saying his words could be considered “locker room talk.”
“No one’s ever advocated going that step where you get a little bit, ‘Hey, I’m going to invade someone’s space.’ … A lot of [locker room talk is] real kind of desperate talk. The reason it’s in a locker room is because no one’s proud of it.”
Stern noted he’s reached out to Trump to inform him the surfacing of the tapes were none of his doing.
“I told him that [Donald Trump] I want you to know I’m not sitting there releasing these tapes. I don’t do that. I wouldn’t do that to any of my guests.”
[Featured Images by Andrew H. Walker/Win McNamee/Getty Images]