What did Howard Stern say about releasing his old interviews with Donald Trump?
Executive summary
Howard Stern said he would not dig into or replay his archive of roughly 50 interviews with Donald Trump because doing so “would be a betrayal” of his guests and because Trump “did the show in an effort to be entertaining and have fun with us,” remarks Stern delivered on his SiriusXM program amid media scrutiny of those old conversations [1] [2]. He also stressed that those exchanges were broadcast publicly — not private tapes — while framing his refusal as a reaction to reporters “attacking” Trump during an exhausted election cycle [2] [3].
1. Stern’s central claim: replaying the tapes would be a betrayal
On-air, Stern repeatedly rejected the idea of re-airing his Trump interviews, saying that to pull them up now, when Trump was under attack, “would be a betrayal to any of our guests” and that he felt using the material in that way would be wrong [1] [3]. Multiple outlets summarized Stern’s position with the same language: he believes airing archival segments for political advantage would violate the spirit in which the conversations occurred [2] [4].
2. Why Stern says the interviews shouldn’t be weaponized: context and consent
Stern argued the dynamic between him and Trump was performative and consensual — Trump came on “to be entertaining and have fun” — and Stern contrasted those on-air appearances with truly private recordings like the Billy Bush hot‑mic tape, noting his Trump conversations were publicly broadcast at the time [1] [2]. He framed his decision as principled rather than protective, saying the material was “right there in the open” and that the recent attention amounted to reporters “scrambling” to repackage what already aired [2] [5].
3. What the interviews contained — and why they matter to critics
Reporting that prompted Stern’s comments focused on Trump’s repeated lewd and misogynistic remarks on Stern’s show across years — comments about Ivanka, pageant contestants, and other sexual boasts — which news organizations highlighted as part of a pattern relevant to Trump’s public character [1] [6]. Those excerpts were mined and republished by outlets, creating a public debate over whether replaying such clips in 2016 served journalistic interest or political impact [6] [5].
4. The counterargument: archives as public record and the “Trump on Stern” effort
Critics and some researchers push back on Stern’s refusal by pointing out that the Stern-Trump interviews are a public record of a major political figure and therefore newsworthy; independent projects have cataloged and made many of the appearances accessible precisely because they see historical and civic value in the material [7]. News organizations that republished clips argued resurfacing them was a legitimate effort to inform voters about a candidate’s long‑standing public statements [6] [5].
5. Motives, admission of influence, and the hidden angles
Stern’s stance cannot be divorced from his own political identity and media power: he has said he supported Hillary Clinton and has acknowledged that his show helped shape public perceptions of Trump — even saying his access allowed Trump to be “an open book” and that he “helped” Trump’s rise by showcasing that personality [2] [8]. That admission complicates Stern’s refusal: defenders read it as ethical consistency about not repurposing entertainment content for political attack, while skeptics see a potential attempt to avoid scrutiny of how his platform amplified a future candidate [3] [8].
6. Bottom line — what Stern actually said, and what remains unsettled
In short, Stern declared he would not air his Trump archives because he believes doing so now would betray guests and miscast material intended as entertainment, emphasized the conversations had been publicly aired at the time, and framed his decision against the backdrop of intensive election coverage [1] [2] [3]. What remains contested is whether that refusal shields important public‑interest material from scrutiny or preserves a boundary between entertainment archives and political journalism — a debate reflected in the divergent approaches of independent archivists and mainstream news outlets [7] [6].