Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, already under siege for vulgar comments about forcing women into sex, also had crude, sexually explicit conversations in a series of radio interviews over the past 23 years, even noting how "voluptuous" his daughter was.
On a new batch of recordings from Howard Stern's radio shows aired today by CNN, Trump said he would "have no problem" having sex with 24-year-olds, that he "couldn't care less" if he satisfies the women he sleeps with, that "it's checkout time" once women reach the age of 35 and that he had engaged in three-way sex.
"Haven't we all?" Trump told Stern on his SiriusXM satellite show in 2008. "Are we babies?"
Trump also described barging in on nude Miss Universe beauty pageant contestants in their dressing room, characterising his visits as inspections by the contest's owner.
In previously reported tapes of Stern programmes from the 1990s through this decade, Trump bantered with the host of the popular radio raunchfest about whether he could have "nailed" Princess Diana, whether he would stay with his wife if she were disfigured in a car crash ("How do the breasts look?" Trump asked) and how often he had sex with his wife, Melania.
In the new collection of recordings, Trump and Stern trade observations about the nominee's older daughter, Ivanka. Stern asked if Ivanka has breast implants and her father said she does not. "She's actually always been very voluptuous," Trump added in the 12-year-old conversation. Ivanka was 22 at the time.
Trump was a frequent guest on Stern's show both when it was syndicated to FM broadcast stations across the country and in later years, when it moved to satellite radio, where there were no barriers to how explicit the sex talk could be. During one of those appearances, in 2000, Melania Trump joined her husband on the phone and told listeners that she and Donald "have incredible sex once a day, sometimes even more".
The new batch of recordings, released one day after the Washington Post published video from 2005 showing Trump making lewd remarks about groping women, adds to the voluminous evidence that the Republican nominee has habitually said demeaning and vulgar things about women over the course of decades. Trump has never denied that, but has always argued that such comments are meant only to entertain and are locker room banter and therefore do not reflect his respect and love for women.
Respect was not a topic when Stern asked Trump about his relationships with women. The radio host, whose show for many years consisted in good part of seeing how far his interviewees would go in describing their own sex lives and fantasies, found a ready and willing partner in Trump, who at every turn went there.
#CNNKFile exclusive: Trump describes going backstage and looking at naked pageant contestants with Howard Stern. https://t.co/hnLGZ6Xj4Q
— CNN (@CNN) October 8, 2016
"Look, I like sex," Trump said.
Had he had threesomes, Stern asked. Trump confirmed it.
Would he have sex with women who were menstruating? Affirmative. Had he had sex with a black woman? "Well, it depends on what your definition of black is," Trump said.
Asked in 2005 if he'd ever had sex with contestants in the Miss Universe contest, which he owned, Trump initially said, "I never comment on things like that". But when Stern pressed, asking if Trump would say no if a contestant sought to have sex with him, the pageant owner said, "I don't want to hurt their feelings".
Might that pose a conflict of interest, asked Stern's longtime sidekick, Robin Quivers.
"It could be a conflict of interest," Trump replied, "but, you know, it's the kind of thing you worry about later. You tend to think about the conflict a little later on. . . What you could say is that, as the owner of the pageant, it's your obligation to do that."
Trump volunteered that as the owner, he would sometimes wander backstage when the contestants were nude or dressing. "I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it," he said.
Stern seemed especially interested in the age of the women Trump would sleep with. In an interview in 2002, when Melania was 30, Trump called 30 "a perfect age."
How about when a woman gets a bit older, one of Stern's co-hosts asked.
"What is it at 35, Howard?" Trump replied. "It's called checkout time." Guffaws ensued all around.
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From RealClearPolitics.com
National poll averages
Hillary Clinton 47.5 (+4.6)
Donald Trump 42.9
Favourability ratings
Clinton +11.1
Betting odds
Clinton 80
Trump 20
Battleground states
Strong Clinton
Colorado +7.3
Virginia +7
Michigan +7Wisconsin +6
Pennsylvania +6
New Hampshire +5
Leaning Clinton
Minnesota +4.3
Maine +3.8
North Carolina +2.6
Florida +2.4
Toss-up Clinton
Nevada +1.4
Toss-up Trump
Arizona +1
Ohio +1.6
Strong Trump
Iowa +5
Years earlier, in 1993, Trump told Stern in a discussion about extramarital affairs that he was surprised to learn that the radio host was faithful to his wife. "I was actually faithful to my wife for many years," Trump said, "until I realized the marriage wasn't gonna work."
In 2006, Stern asked Trump whether he could "now be banging 24-year-olds?"
"Oh, absolutely," Trump answered. "I'd have no problem."
Asked if there was any age limit in who he might go after, Trump said, "No, I have no age - I mean, I have age limit. I don't want to be like Congressman Foley, with, you know, 12-year-olds."
Mark Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned from the House that year following allegations that he had sent sexually explicit messages to teenage boys who had been congressional pages. This August, Foley sat behind Trump at a rally in Florida, in seats reserved by the Trump campaign staff.
In one of their conversations about Trump's daughter, Stern complimented Ivanka's looks and asked, "Can I say this? A piece of a--."
"Yeah," Trump responded.
Stern once asked Trump to define "the perfect date."
"You meet at 7 for drinks," Trump replied. "You promise to take her to dinner but you never get there."