Donald Trump considered quitting his first run for the presidency after the notorious recording about him grabbing women surfaced a month before the election, Kellyanne Conway writes in her upcoming book, which was obtained by the Daily Beast.
The videotape of a chat with “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in 2005 captured Trump boasting that he could get away with anything with women because he was the star of the “Apprentice” reality TV series.
“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump said on tape. “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
He also boasted about one women that he “moved on her,” and about another: “I moved on her like a bitch.”
Following an uproar over his comments, Trump shrugged them off as merely “locker-room banter.” He also said at the time there was “zero chance” he’d quit the presidential race because of the outrage and controversy.
But Conway, who would soon become a White House aide, reportedly wrote in her memoir, “Here’s the Deal,” due out Tuesday, that she and Trump met in Trump Tower the night of Oct. 8, 2016, after the recording surfaced, to discuss his future, according to the Daily Beast.
Trump explained that he had seen reports that the GOP “could force him off the ticket or hold a vote to expel him” because of the comments.
“Should I get out” of the race? Trump reportedly asked Conway.
Conway told Trump he couldn’t quit, “unless you want to forfeit and throw the whole damn thing to Hillary,” she reportedly recounts in the book.
He was still worried, according to Conway, asking: “Will I lose? Will we lose? Can we still win?”
Conway claims in the book that she told Trump his comments were “reprehensible,” according to the Daily Beast. Yet, publicly, she was completely dismissive of the appalling remarks — and angry that many noted the future president was bragging about what sounded like sexual assault.
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