Billy Bush claims he reported Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ tape in 2005

Former Access Hollywood anchor Billy Bush is claiming that he warned NBC about the infamous taped conversation with Donald Trump several years before it leaked in 2016, but the network allegedly kept it buried to protect their “cash cow.”

Bush brought up the incident during an appearance on SiriusXM’s podcast Literally! With Rob Lowetelling the Parks and Recreation alum that he flagged the President’s lewd comments “the day of filming” in 2005.

“I called my producer (and) said, ‘You’re not gonna believe what Trump said. He is going after Nancy.’ All I said was ‘Nancy O’Dell’ because I didn’t hear the other stuff,” Bush told Lowe, referencing his Access Hollywood colleague O’Dell. “I said, ‘He’s trying to take Nancy furniture shopping to sleep with her. This is crazy. He’s done it again! The guy’s an animal!'”

Bush said he reported Trump’s comments about O’Dell to his superior — seemingly leaving out Trump’s comments about grabbing women by the genitals despite responding to him in the video — but claims the warning sat “in a desk forever.”

“Had that tape leaked out when it actually occurred in 2005, I would’ve been fired for an entirely different reason; killing (NBC’s) cash cow,” Bush alleged. “Trump was a protected, revered source. He was a hundred million dollars in profit for NBC. He was the king of the ratings.”

That reverence didn’t last long, according to Bush.

“It cost a lot of money to make The Apprentice cost nothing,” he told Lowe. “And his ratings were huge… Then, years later, the falling out, he used to own the pageant and air it on NBC and they have litigation and they hate him, and now he’s running for president and they want him dead,” he claimed.

The veteran broadcaster alleged the NBC executives had been on the hunt for clips that featured Trump speaking in a disparaging manner about women after a former pageant queen came forward and said the then-presidential candidate had been inappropriate with her.

“Trump said, ‘I’ve never said or done anything inappropriate with women ever in my life,'” Bush recalled. “And then NBC, who hates him, sent out these messages to every division of the company: ‘Do you have any tapes…what they really wanted was Mark Burnett’s tape, the guy who ran The Apprentice, because there’s outtakes forever — but (they asked), ‘Does anyone else have anything of him talking disparagingly about women? We need this.’ And my producer at the time was like, ‘Holy s***. The bus ride. That tape, that was like 11 years ago. That’s the time when Bush called me right after it happened.'”

The Washington Post later published an exposé revealing the audio and created a huge scandal late in the 2016 election cycle, ultimately leading to Bush’s firing from the network. In the tape, Trump was heard on a hot mic making lewd comments about women and seemingly bragging about committing sexual assault. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump is overheard saying. “You can do anything.”

Bush does not say much in the interaction, only heard laughing and occasionally egging the then-Apprentice host on. But his involvement ended up costing him a job at NBC’s Today.

“They had what they thought was the one thing — we’ve learned later, nothing takes him out,” Bush noted. “But this, at the time, I think everybody agreed had to be the thing. So whatever, whoever’s the collateral damage around it, tough s—. The bigger mission is this man not becoming President.”

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to NBC for comment.

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A year after the tape’s release, Bush lamented“I wish I had changed the topic. I wish I had said: ‘Does anyone want water?’ or, ‘It looks like it’s gonna rain’…. I didn’t have the strength of character to do it.”

Watch Bush discuss his post-Trump leak journey on Literally! with Rob Lowe above.