Melania Trump is coming to her husband's defense.
Donald Trump's wife is finally speaking out on-camera about the recorded 2005 conversation between her husband and then-Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, where the Republican presidential nominee can be heard making disparaging remarks about women and bragging about being able to commit sexual assault.
During an interview airing Monday night on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, Melania suggests that her husband may have been egged on by Bush to continue making lewd remarks, which she refers to as "boy talk."
"And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on -- it was only a mic. And I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on," she tells host Anderson Cooper. "He was led on -- like, egged on -- from the host to say dirty and bad stuff."
"The boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other, 'Oh, this and that' and talking about the girls," the former model explains. "But yes, I was surprised, of course."
"I said to my husband that, you know, the language was inappropriate. It's not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know," she says during the interview. "I was surprised, because I don't know that person that would talk that way, and that he would say that kind of stuff in private."
Melania's full interview with Cooper airs at 8 p.m. ET on CNN.
In the week and a half since the 2005 tape was leaked, a number of women have come forwardaccusing Trump of inappropriate sexual conduct, all of which he and his campaign have vigorously denied.
The fallout from the 70-year-old businessman's recent scandals were mocked on last weekend'sSaturday Night Live, which prompted Trump to take to Twitter to hit back at the comedy variety show and criticize Alec Baldwin's impression.
