Donald Trump went into Sunday night’s presidential debate on the defensive. On Friday, the disclosure of a recording of Trump making breathtakingly vile comments about women in 2005 delivered a serious jolt to a campaign that had been losing support since his jittery performance in the Sept. 26 debate with Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post had obtained the audio of Trump’s conversation with “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that began while they were riding on a bus toward the set of “Days of Our Lives,” where Trump was to make a cameo appearance.

The real estate mogul, who had recently married Melania Trump at the time, is recorded bragging about groping and seducing women, whether married or unmarried. He spoke in specifics about how he can force himself on women. “When you’re a star, they let you do it ... you can do anything,” he said.

Trump spelled out his attempt to have sex with a particular married woman. “And I moved on her very heavily,” he is heard saying, adding: “I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.” He also made crude comments about her appearance, suggesting she had breast augmentation.

Some of the words are simply too vulgar for publication.

Trump’s words were disgusting, and his initial quasi-apology was disturbing in itself. His statement dismissed the crude exchange as “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.”

If anyone was offended. A human being with any sense of decency would characterize Trump’s comments as patently offensive. But the Republican nominee just cannot bring himself to apologize for anything: for statements that are factually inaccurate, racially insensitive, insulting or otherwise reckless and boorish.

Many years ago. Trump was nearly 60 years old. At that point in life, a person’s essential character has been set for decades. And here’s another way to put that 2005 conversation in context: Trump has been trying to make an issue of Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions in the 1990s.

Bill Clinton has said far worse. Does this sound like the words of a would-be president ... or the desperate rationalization of a child who has been caught breaking the rules? He again invoked the Bill-is-worse line in a video released later that night. And, again, his contrition was hedged — and a fresh wave of Republicans distanced themselves from their nominee.

What Trump described pursuing with arrogant glee was not merely distasteful and disrespectful. It was sexual assault — a crime in any state of the nation.

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