Donald Trump on Saturday defied growing calls from leading Republicans to withdraw from the presidential race in favour of his running mate, a day after a decade-old recording revealed him bragging in explicit terms about using his fame to grope and take advantage of women.
Trump issued a rare apology for the remarks on Friday and on Saturday was reported to be in crisis talks with close advisers in New York City. But in a call to the Washington Post he said: “I’d never withdraw. I’ve never withdrawn in my life. No, I’m not quitting this race. I have tremendous support.”
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he said: “There is zero chance I’ll quit.”
With just one month until election day and one day until the second presidential debate, a growing chorus of senior Republicans – if not party leadership – called for Trump to let his running mate take over.
Kelly Ayotte, a senator in New Hampshire locked in a tough re-election battle, said in a statement posted to Twitter that as “a mom and an American” she “cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women”. She would, she said, write Indiana governor Mike Pence’s name on the ballot.
Ben Sasse, a freshman senator from Nebraska and a leading Trump critic, tweeted: “Character matters. [Donald Trump] is obviously not going to win. But he can still make an honorable move: step aside & let Mike Pence try.”
Idaho senator Mike Crapo said Trump’s “pattern of behavior” had left him no choice but to follow suit.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, a longtime and influential supporter of Trump, said: “For the benefit of the country, the party and his family, and for his own good, [Donald Trump] should withdraw. More and worse oppo coming.”
This did not deter Trump, who told the Post keeping the party behind him was easier “because [Hillary Clinton is] so bad. She’s so flawed as a candidate. Running against her, I can’t say it’d be the same if I ran against someone else, but running against her makes it a lot easier, that’s for sure.”
“People are calling and saying, ‘Don’t even think about doing anything else but running,” he added. “You have to see what’s going on. The real story is that people have no idea the support. I don’t know how that’s going to boil down but people have no idea the support.”
In Utah, one of the most reliably conservative states in the union, a number of senior Republicans explicitly abandoned their endorsements of the candidate, a step national party leaders who condemned the remarks on Friday night did not feel emboldened to take.
According to realclearpolitics.com’s polling average, Trump leads Hillary Clinton in Utah by 13 points. But he only gains 37% support in the heavily Mormon state, where the independent conservative Evan McMullin, a Mormon, hopes to achieve success.
Utah’s governor, Gary Herbert, and Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House committee investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, withdrew their support for Trump. Mike Lee, one of the few Republican senators who had resisted endorsing Trump, representative Chris Stewart and former governor Jon Huntsman called on Trump to step aside and let Pence lead the ticket.
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee who has never backed Trump, said: “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.”
The 2005 hot-mic recording, which was obtained by the Washington Post, showed Trump speaking to Billy Bush, a cousin of George and Jeb Bush who was then host of Access Hollywood, as they prepared to meet a star of a soap opera in which Trump was to film a cameo.
In the tape Trump, then newly married to his third wife, Melania, reminisces about making a pass at a married woman, saying: “I moved on her and I failed, I’ll admit it … I did try and fuck her. She was married.”
The Republican nominee goes on to describe his efforts at seduction: “I am automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss, I don’t even wait … and when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
“Grab them by the pussy,” he says. “You can do anything.”
Trump initially dismissed the remarks as “locker room banter” and said “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close.” Late on Friday night, however, with criticism mounting, his campaign posted a 90-second video-taped apology on Facebook.
“I’ve never said I’m a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I’m not,” Trump said. “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.”
He then made another attack on Bill Clinton, citing the extramarital liaisons of the husband of his Democratic opponent, a tactic he has long suggested he may employ in Sunday’s second debate.
On Saturday, however, Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina and former presidential candidate who has never supported Trump, doubted the tactic would work. “I don’t believe the Bill Clinton defense will work as we impeached Bill Clinton. I was there,” he said on Twitter.
Saturday was meant to be a major turning point for the Republican party, with Trump due to appear at a campaign event for the first time with the House speaker, Paul Ryan, in the congressman’s home state, Wisconsin.
Instead, Ryan said in a statement he was “sickened” by the recording and that Trump would not appear at the event. A source confirmed to the Guardian that Trump had been explicitly disinvited to what had been billed as a “Republican unity event”. Trump said in a statement that Pence would appear in his place, although NBC reported on Saturday that Pence would not be attending.
Trump remained in New York, ostensibly to prepare for the presidential debate at Washington University in St Louis on Sunday night. The Republican National Committee chair, Reince Priebus, whose job demands that he rally his party behind their nominee no matter what, was reported to be with him. He said on Friday: “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.”
Initial statements of censure from senior Republicans stopped short of outright retreat. Senator John McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee who faces a tough re-election battle in Arizona, said on Friday: “No woman should ever be victimized by this kind of inappropriate behavior. He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences.”
McCain’s last line appeared aimed at voters in states like his own, where Republicans are being yoked to their unpopular presidential nominee in races that could decide the fate of the Senate, Democratic control of which under a Democratic president would open the way to a transformation of the supreme court bench. Ayotte’s strong statement on Saturday marked a key departure from such cautious words.
Trump has proved remarkably resilient in the face of controversies and scandals that include sustaining a nearly $1bn loss that may have enabled him to not pay federal income tax for 18 years; insulting the parents of a Muslim US soldier who died in Iraq; imitating a disabled reporter; mocking McCain for being captured in Vietnam; and proposing a ban on Muslims entering the US.
Clinton’s campaign seized on Trump’s comments as further proof of the claim that the businessman is temperamentally unfit to be president. “This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president,” Clinton said via Twitter on Friday.
Privately, sources within the Trump campaign have expressed deep dismay about the impact the tape will have on the businessman’s already narrow path to the White House, sources told the Guardian.
Publicly, Trump surrogates fanned out across the news networks on Saturday in an attempt to minimize fallout by raising conspiratorial questions about the timing of the release – on the same day WikiLeaks released what appeared to be transcripts of Clinton’s paid speeches.
“We are now 30 days out,” Scottie Nell Hughes, one of his most vocal female supporters, said on CNN on Saturday. “If these [remarks] were so bad these women should have come forward over the past year and a half.”
Outside Trump Tower on Saturday, support for Trump was in short supply. Karen Bell, visiting from San Antonio, Texas, told the Guardian: “It was fun to watch him at first, in the primaries, but now I’m disgusted. I never thought he’d get this far.
“Bill Clinton was impeached for what he did, so he paid his dues. If Trump brings that up, it’s just silly. Fifth-grader stuff.”
Her husband, Rick Bell, said: “What [Bill Clinton] did was not [Hillary Clinton’s] fault. She was just standing by her man. I don’t blame her for that. Besides look at Melania Trump and what she has to put up with.”
Nate Silver (@NateSilver538)
Exclusive @FiveThirtyEight projection on what the Electoral College would look like if women refuse to vote Trump. pic.twitter.com/kmjxmjnY1l
March 24, 2016
Trump has consistently struggled to attract women voters. In March, a tongue-in-cheek analysis by the website FiveThirtyEight.com showed what the electorate would look like on election day if all women refused to support the Republican.
On the streets of Manhattan, there were some dissenting and supportive voices. Emily Roberts, also visiting from San Antonio, said: “As a woman, yes, it’s offensive, but [the remarks] were behind closed doors. I think Trump can say anything he wants. It’s not going to change the minds of voters. It is what it is.”
Her husband, Chris Roberts, agreed: “It’s just regular locker room talk. That’s perfectly fine.”