Billy Bush wants you to know Donald Trump did brag about sexual assault.

In a remarkable New York Times op-ed published on Monday, the former TV star confirmed what cane toads and tyrant flycatchers already know: the voice on the infamous Access Hollywood tape belongs to the man who now pounds back Big Macs while glued to Fox News inside the White House.

As the Times headline states: “Yes, Donald Trump, You Said That.”

The audio captured by a hot mic in 2005 and leaked to the Washington Post last year was not doctored. It was not a fictional smear job funded by George Soros. According to Bush, there were seven other witnesses who heard Trump proudly reveal how he “moves” on beautiful women, popping Tic Tacs before weaponizing his hands, lips and tongue in pursuit of carnal conquests.

Trump: “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Bush: “Whatever you want.”

Trump: “Grab ’em by the p---y. You can do anything.”

If you’re Trump, apparently, you can later question reality.

As the Times recently reported, in private Trump has raised doubts about the authenticity of the Access Hollywood tape. He has questioned if it was really his voice, an astonishing position since he already issued a rare apology for what he tried to euphemize last year as “locker room banter.”

But as with so many other things that are plainly obvious — the size of his inauguration crowd, his loss in the popular vote, the birthplace of Barack Obama — Trump inhabits a parallel universe in which the truth is smothered by “alternative facts.” He lives inside a fantasyland where any suggestion of personal failing is angrily denounced as “fake news”; where old-time veracity is no match for ego-driven delusion and where pathological lying is as natural as breathing.

“President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history, reportedly telling allies, including at least one United States senator, that the voice on the tape is not his,” writes Bush. “This has hit a raw nerve in me.”

A raw nerve? This poor bastard deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for not socking Trump in the mouth. It’s an outrage Bush, who is now attempting a comeback and will be a guest on Monday’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, was canned for his observer role in the Access Hollywood scandal while Trump still faces no consequences. It’s like Bush watched Trump rob a bank and then was the one who got cuffed and busted for the caught-on-camera heist.

That Trump has incurred zero repercussions is especially galling given the watershed moment we are now witnessing over sexual misconduct. Wretched misdeeds are coming back to haunt and submarine a lot of powerful men — except the most powerful man of all.

Trump never took responsibility for what he said he did. And now he’s trying to say he never said it? This is a second attack on his victims.

“I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention,” writes Bush. “This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to years of power abuse and sexual misconduct. Its leader is wantonly poking the bear.”

But he’s doing more than just that.

Though Bush’s op-ed was greeted with hosannas and plaudits, the fact he even needed to write it should be chilling. Is this really where we are? In just over a year, has Trump really managed to turn indisputable facts into what-if discussions? If he points at a pen and insists it is a pig, will his army of lobotomized zombies grunt and attempt to write their Christmas cards this month with the snout of a hog?

Trump’s relentless assault on reality is not just reshaping political discourse; it is reshaping American democracy. A CBS News poll this weekend found that “71 per cent of Alabama Republicans say the allegations against Roy Moore are false, and those who believe this also overwhelmingly believe Democrats and the media are behind those allegations.”

At this point, Moore could molest a teen girl onstage at one of his rallies and his supporters would either not see it or blame Hillary Clinton.

In his op-ed, Bush shares another telling anecdote. During one private conversation, he says he called out Trump’s tendency to inflate TV ratings. Trump’s response: “People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you.”

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It’s one thing to be guided by deception when you are a bloviating charlatan in the entertainment industry. It’s quite another to do so as a world leader at a time when words increasingly have grave consequences.

That’s what is so remarkable and terrifying about Bush’s op-ed: everything is now up for debate and reality is the least of it.

vmenon@thestar.ca

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