Trump’s Son Says Hot Mic Tape Makes Trump ‘Human,’ ‘Normal’

Donald Trump Jr. railed against the media on Thursday for reporting on claims that his father touched and kissed women without their consent, while defending the GOP nominee’s remarks caught on a 2005 hot mic tape in which he bragged to a TV host about that kind of behavior.

“There’s sort of the reality of the situation and then there’s how the media portrays it again. So I mean, listen I know plenty of people,” Trump Jr. said on Charlotte Morning News on WBT radio, as picked up by CNN. “I’ve had conversations like that with plenty of people where people use language off color. They’re talking, two guys, amongst themselves. I’ve seen it time and time again. I think it makes him a human. I think it makes him a normal person not a political robot. He hasn’t spent his whole life waiting for this moment to run for the presidency.”

On the tape, the elder Trump boasts to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush that his fame allows him to kiss women without their consent and “grab them by the pussy.” The Trump campaign has dismissed the rhetoric as “locker room talk” and the GOP nominee at Sunday’s debate denied he ever acted the way he described. Since then numerous women have come forward to accuse Trump of inappropriately touching or kissing them, or engaging in other unwanted advances. Trump and his surrogates have pushed back against their allegations.

“Come on guys, it’s so ridiculous, I’ve never heard anything dumber in my life. All of sudden, two, three weeks before election, someone comes out — it’s not like he hasn’t been in the public eye for 30 years,” Trump Jr. said Thursday. He accused the New York Times — which published the claims of two of the women Wednesday evening — of trying “to smear someone’s name time and time again for political motives and political gain.”