Billy Bush: Hearing 'Access Hollywood' tape is 'like a gut punch now'

Bill Keveney | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Billy Bush confirms it was Trump on 'Access Hollywood' tape Despite apologizing for making crude remarks about grabbing women years ago, President Trump is now reportedly questioning the authenticity of the leaked 'Access Hollywood' tape, and Billy Bush isn't having it.

President Trump may have suggested it isn't his voice in the explosive Access Hollywood recording that threatened his 2016 presidential candidacy, but Billy Bush, who was with him at the time, isn't having it.

During a Monday taping of CBS' The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Bush, who was with Trump on a bus in 2005 when he uttered crude comments about being able to grope women, rejected any effort by the president to say it wasn't him speaking, as The New York Times reported last week.

Trump is questioning authenticity of 2005 ‘Access Hollywood’ tape President Trump is apparently now questioning the authenticity of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape where he bragged that his star power allowed him to grope women.

"You can't say that. That is your voice. I was there. You were there. That's your voice on the tape," Bush said as if he were speaking to the president.

The former Access Hollywood correspondent and anchor was making his first late-night appearance since he departed NBC's Today show shortly after the Access recording became public in October 2016.

Bush also said that unlike Trump, who "spent 14 minutes on this and went on to become president," he'd spent the last 14 months of his life "dealing with this."

In fact, he noted, he was checking into a remote retreat in California to begin the work of reconciling his role in the incident when he caught sight of Trump being sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

"He's got his hand up and I'm going into my little cabin to do the work," Bush recalled with incredulity. "Tough."

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During the visit, he reiterated statements he made in an opinion piece printed in Monday's New York Times, including an expression of admiration for women who have come forth to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct.

"I will never know the fear you felt or the frustration of being summarily dismissed and called a liar, but I do know a lot about the anguish of being inexorably linked to Donald Trump. You have my respect and admiration," he wrote in the Times.

On the Late Show, Bush told Colbert that the number of women accusing Trump and their stories made a strong impression on him.

"As I read (their accounts), I said (16) women don't get together and say, 'Hey, you know what would be really fun? Let's take down a powerful guy, ha ha.' No, they don't," he told Colbert. "And I said, 'OK, you're reopening wounds on them, too. Enough's enough. Stop playing around with people's lives.' That upset me."

Colbert asked Bush what it was like hearing the Access Hollywood tape again for the first time in 14 months.

"The first time I ever heard it was three days before it leaked," he recalled. "It was like a gut punch. It's like a gut punch now. It will always be."

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Jayme Deerwester contributed to this report.