Donald Trump considered dropping out of the 2016 presidential race after the leak of the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape showed him boasting that women let him “grab ‘em by the pussy,” according to Kellyanne Conway.
Conway, a former Trump campaign manager and senior adviser, made the surprising claim in her new memoir Here’s the Deal, a copy of which The Daily Beast obtained ahead of its release Tuesday.
She writes that on the night of Oct. 8, 2016, in the secrecy of Trump Tower, she and Trump huddled around the corner from the elevator landing on the 24th floor to mull the future of his candidacy.
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Trump had seen reports that the GOP “could force him off the ticket or hold a vote to expel him” amid the fury over his “disgusting” comments, captured on video a decade earlier, Conway wrote.
“Should I get out [of the race]?” Trump asked Conway, according to the book.
The leaked Access Hollywood tape ignited a firestorm—and Kellyanne Conway says Trump even considered dropping out of the race.
Pacific Press/Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via GettyConway’s description of what was happening in private stands in stark contrast to Trump’s public comments. The then-candidate told the The Wall Street Journal late on Oct. 8 that there is “zero chance I’ll quit.”
“I never, ever give up,” he added.
Conway said that at the time, she questioned whether Trump might be testing her, or if he was really second-guessing himself.
By her account, she dismissed the idea of him quitting outright.
“You actually can’t,” she quotes herself saying, “unless you want to forfeit and throw the whole damn thing to Hillary.”
Trump is said to have fired back: “What do you mean, I can’t?”
She said she then explained to him that stepping out of the race at that point wasn’t in the picture, since early voting had begun.
“I know you don’t like to lose,” she says she told Trump, “but I also know you don’t like to quit.”
According to the book, Trump appeared to have doubts, asking Conway: “Will I lose? Will we lose? Can we still win?”
She then describes a scene in which she says she reassured him he’d win while also ripping into him over the vulgar remarks he was heard making in the recordings. In addition to the “pussy” brag, Trump also boasted to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush that he doesn’t “even wait” before making a move on a woman—a statement that drew comparisons to sexual assault at the time.
At the time, Conway had defended her boss against such claims, telling CNN’s Dana Bash in October 2016 that people “should stop using” the term “sexual assault” to label what Trump had described in the tapes.
In her new book, however, she claims she called him out and told him his words were “disgusting” and “reprehensible.”
A Trump spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment on Sunday morning. However, on Monday morning, following publication of this story, Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington called Conway’s claims “totally false” in a statement to The Daily Beast. Conway did not respond to requests for comment.
Conway’s book has largely been kept under wraps ahead of publication, though People magazine published an excerpt last week in which Conway revealed how irked she was by her husband George’s constant Twitter criticism of her boss.
“Clearly he was cheating by tweeting,” she wrote.
