reprinted from CNN.
(CNN)Donald Trump bragged about trying to have sex with a married woman and being able to grope women in previously unaired footage from 2005 that surfaced on Friday.
Trump is heard discussing women in vulgar terms during off-camera banter during the taping of a segment for "Access Hollywood," footage which was obtained by The Washington Post.
During the lewd conversation captured by a microphone Trump was wearing on his lapel, Trump recounts how he tried to "fuck" an unidentified married woman before bragging that he is "automatically attracted to beautiful (women)" and just starts "kissing them." The conversation came just months after Trump married his third and current wife, Melania.
He also said: "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
The jaw-dropping description of uninhibited sexual assault as a benefit of his celebrity poses a substantial setback to Trump's attempts to overcome his deficit with female voters with just a month until Election Day. Hillary Clinton and her campaign have repeatedly sought to portray Trump as disrespectful and demeaning toward women, bringing up a slew of rude and vulgar comments Trump has made about women during and before his run for president.
The comments immediately raised the stakes for Sunday's highly anticipated debate between Trump and Clinton, and the remarks could hand her -- and viewers in the town hall audience -- more evidence to make that point.
The remarks prompted Trump -- for the first time in his nearly 16-month campaign -- to apologize.
"This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course - not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended," Trump said in a statement released Friday.
Clinton's campaign tweeted a link to the story and said simply, "This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president."
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, campaigning in Las Vegas, said Trump's comments "makes me sick to my stomach."
"I don't like to say the words that he's used in the past when he calls women, 'pigs, dogs and slobs' ... but this is behavior that's just outrageous and so that there would be a news story that would have more statements like this of this kind, I mean, gosh, I'm sad to say that I'm not surprised," Kaine said. "I should be surprised and shocked. I'm sad to say that I'm not."
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