White House conveniently forgets Trump admitted to sexual assault on tape

We know this because in addition to the many, many reports from women he assaulted and harassed, he admitted it on tape, and we all heard it.

“I don’t even wait,” he said on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, describing how he kissed and grabbed women without their consent. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

So it’s an odd strategy, to put it mildly, for the White House to insist that those women who have come forward to say “Yes, he did this to me too” are liars. Every single one of them.

But that’s what White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CBS News reporter Jacqueline Alemany at Friday’s briefing.

ALEMANY:  Obviously, sexual harassment has been in the news. At least 16 women accused the president of sexually harassing them throughout the course of the campaign. Last week, during a press conference in the Rose Garden, the president called these accusations fake news. Is this the official White House position — that all these women are lying? 

SANDERS: Yeah, we’ve been clear on that from the beginning and the president has spoken on it. 

The president has spoken on it. He gleefully said he grabs women and believes he can get away with it because of his fame as a reality TV show host.

Long before that 2005 tape was revealed during the 2016 campaign, Trump had frequently boasted not just of his sexual conquests, but of the way he treated women — and underage girls — as sexual objects. He has talked about his own daughter’s “very nice figure” and said he might be “dating her” if she were not his daughter.

Many women have come forward with their own stories of Trump groping and grabbing them. It’s a long list, dating back decades, and it even includes his first wife, Ivana Trump, who said that he raped her in 1989, when they were still married.

Trump has a very long and very public record of misogyny. The list of women who have accused him of sexual harassment and assault is also very long. And then there is his own admission.

At a time when huge numbers of women are coming forward with stories of abuse by famous and powerful men, the country should have a president who applauds their courage and vows to combat sexual abuse.

Instead, we have a president who smears victims and makes no apology for his own admitted crimes.