Report: NBC Sat On Trump Story For Days

NBC News was aware of video footage of Donald Trump making lewd and disparaging remarks about women for nearly four days, a network executive said Saturday, but held onto the recording until lawyers finished reviewing the material.

The network’s caution led to an awkward result: NBC News was scooped by The Washington Post, which took just five hours to vet and post its story. A tip from an individual led to The Post breaking one of the most consequential stories of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The disclosure of Trump’s unguarded comments, which were made while he was wearing a microphone for an interview on “Access Hollywood” in 2005.

NBC News first became aware of the footage late Monday after receiving notice from producers at “Access Hollywood,” a syndicated entertainment-news program owned by NBC. The program’s producers had combed their archives for interviews with Trump after reading an Associated Press account of crude remarks he had made about female contestants on “The Apprentice,” the NBC reality program that Trump had starred on for 14 seasons.

They found the 2005 segment, in which Trump and “Access Hollywood” co-host Billy Bush banter crudely about women while traveling to a studio taping.

By Tuesday morning, NBC News determined that the footage was newsworthy and began to prepare a story. The news division agreed to let “Access Hollywood” break the story first, given that it had shot and unearthed the tape, according to an NBC executive who agreed to give the network’s account on condition he not be named or quoted directly.

Although NBC and “Access” both recognized the newsworthiness of the tape and intended to air it, it first had to undergo a review by the company’s lawyers, the executive said. The executive was unaware of any specific legal issue raised by airing an 11-year-old recording of a presidential candidate who was apparently aware at the time that he was being recorded by a TV program.

News outlets often submit potentially sensitive stories to lawyers for review before publication or broadcast.