As the Trump campaign confronts a veritable Advent calendar of October surprises, more reports have surfaced revealing the Republican presidential nominee making crass, offensive comments about women and their bodies – and his own daughter is at the centre of the most recent.
After scouring almost two decades of audio interviews between Donald Trump and radio personality Howard Stern, CNN published excerpts of the candidate repeatedly commenting on Ivanka Trump’s body.
The audio was piled atop already damning clips unearthed by the Washington Post that feature Mr Trump bragging about grabbing women “by the p***y” and making unwanted advances on them because of his celebrity status.
But in multiple interviews with Stern, Mr Trump often regarded his daughter in a sexual manner.
“She's actually always been very voluptuous,“ Mr Trump told Stern in an October 2006 interview, after the host commented on Ms Trump’s breasts. ”She's tall, she's almost six feet tall and she's been, she's an amazing beauty.”
In an interview two years prior, Mr Trump gave Stern permission to refer to a then 23-year-old Ms Trump as a “piece of a**”.
“By the way, your daughter,” said Stern. “Can I say this? A piece of a**.”
“Yeah,” Mr Trump approved.
Their conversations touched on women’s ages – Mr Trump quipped that 35 was “check-out time” – race of the New York businessman’s sex partners, and whether or not he had ever engaged in sex with Miss Universe contestants.
The CNN tapes come as Republican leaders back away from their endorsements of the Party’s nominee at an unprecedented rate – with only a month before Election Day – and continue to reaffirm a major criticism of Mr Trump from his rival, Hillary Clinton.
A large portion of Ms Clinton’s advertising campaign against Mr Trump has centred around his derogatory, sexist comments about women and their bodies. And after the Friday afternoon release of Mr Trump’s 2005 comments Ms Clinton issued a short statement in response:
“This is horrific,” she tweeted. “We cannot allow this man to become president."
Ms Trump has not publicly adressed the new clips, but she defended her father amid sexual assault allegations in May.
"Look, I'm not in every interaction my father has," she told CBS. "But he's not a groper. It's not who he is. And I've known my father obviously my whole life and he has total respect for women."
