Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Reuters
“I pledge to be a better man tomorrow, and will never, ever let you down.”
That was what Donald Trump said on Oct. 7, 2016, as part of his video apology for the now infamous Access Hollywood tape. That day, Republican leaders—including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Trump’s own running mate Mike Pence—had all rebuked his behavior on the tape. In a late-night Facebook Live video, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) called on Trump to “step aside.”
The very next day—the first day of Trump’s new era as a “better man”—his attorney Michael Cohen began negotiating on Trump’s behalf to keep a porn star quiet about a sex romp that she and Trump had four months after his wife gave birth to his youngest son.