<p>The <a type="internal">infamous Access Hollywood tape</a> in which <a type="internal">Donald Trump</a> brags about his ability to &#8220;grab&#8221; women with impunity because he&#8217;s famous is real, Access Hollywood&#8216;s hosts asserted on Monday&#8212;just in case the president had any doubts.</p> 
<p>In response to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/politics/trump-roy-moore-mcconnell-alabama-senate.html?_r=0" type="external">report</a> that Trump was questioning the authenticity of the 2005 hot-mic recording, which captured the former reality TV star saying he could &#8220;grab [women] by the pussy,&#8221; Access Hollywood host Natalie Morales said on Monday&#8217;s show that the tap is, in fact, &#8220;very real.&#8221;</p> 
<p>&#8220;We wanted to clear something up that has been reported across the media landscape. Let us make this perfectly clear: The tape is very real,&#8221; Morales said. &#8220;Remember his excuse at the time was &#8216;locker room talk.&#8217; He said every one of those words.&#8221;</p> 
<q> <p>TRUMP: The "Access Hollywood" tape might be fake</p> </q> 
<p>After the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?postshare=3561475870579757&amp;tid=ss_tw" type="external">Washington Post</a> revealed the tape ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Trump apologized and at no time stated that the tape was faked. When CNN&#8217;s Anderson Cooper pressed Trump on whether he &#8220;understood&#8221; that what he said was an admission of sexual assault, Trump pushed back, dismissing his comments as &#8220;locker room talk.&#8221;</p> 
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think you understand what was said,&#8221; Trump <a type="internal">responded to Cooper during an October 2016 presidential debate</a>. &#8220;This was locker room talk. I&#8217;m not proud of it. I apologized to my family, I apologized to the American people. Certainly, I&#8217;m not proud of it, but this was locker room talk.&#8221;</p> 
<p>Following publication of the tape, at least 16 women came forward to <a type="internal">say Trump sexually harassed or assaulted them</a>.</p> 
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<p>News that Trump reportedly questioned the tape&#8217;s veracity&#8212;once to a senator and, more recently, once to an adviser, according to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/politics/trump-roy-moore-mcconnell-alabama-senate.html?_r=0" type="external">New York Times</a>&#8212;brought the tape back to the surface amid an outpouring of allegations against high-profile men across entertainment, politics, and media.</p> 
<p>During Monday&#8217;s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to address Trump&#8217;s reported skepticism of the tape&#8217;s legitimacy and characterized the tape as unimportant because Trump won the election.</p> 
<p>&#8220;The president addressed this, this was litigated and certainly answered during the election by the overwhelming support for the president and the fact he&#8217;s sitting here in the Oval Office today,&#8221; she <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362007-wh-dodges-on-whether-trump-questions-the-legitimacy-of-access" type="external">said</a>.</p>
‘Access Hollywood’ to Trump: The tape is ‘very real’