This Saturday marks one year since the release of the now infamous Access Hollywood tape, which captured Donald Trump bragging about how he grabbed women "by the pussy" because "when you’re a star, they let you do it."
While the 2005 tape didn't end Trump's presidential campaign as some might have hoped, women's advocacy group Ultraviolet doesn't want you to forget about it. To mark the anniversary, the organization is playing the clip on a loop on a large screen on Constitution Avenue, between the National Mall and the White House until 9 p.m. tonight.
The Washington Post first released the 11-year-old footage — which featured Trump using lewd language to brag to Billy Bush about kissing, groping, and trying to get women to have sex with him — on Friday, October 8, 2016. "I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them," Trump says in the recording. "It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait."
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"When you’re a star, they let you do it," he goes on. "You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
After the footage was made public, people thought Trump's campaign was dead: Republican leaders distanced themselves from him, and several women came forward alleging Trump had sexually assaulted them.
It might feel like the Access Hollywood tape was released a lifetime ago, but Ultraviolet wants you to remember Trump's comments — and how they weren't simply "locker-room banter," as he tried to argue in the aftermath of the scandal.
"The Access Hollywood video was a disgusting display of Trump’s true colors... [It] was a man bragging about sexually assaulting women. That man may now sit in the Oval Office, but we will not let him — or anyone else — forget the tape or those comments,” Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet, said in a statement.
"The Donald Trump on that tape is the same Donald Trump that sits in the Oval Office every day," the statement continues, "aggressively pursuing an anti-woman agenda, including the active dismantling of legal protections for survivors of sexual assault. That is why we are showing the video on loop in D.C., and that is why it is all the more important that we stand up and 'grab back.'"
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