What is the full, published transcript of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape and where can it be read?
Executive summary
The complete, published verbatim transcript of the 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape — the off‑mic conversation in which Donald J. Trump and host Billy Bush made lewd remarks about women — has been reproduced in full by several major news outlets; the BBC explicitly published the full transcript online [1], and other outlets such as The Independent and Mic posted complete transcripts at the time the tape was released [2] [3]. The original video and reporting were obtained and published by The Washington Post, and that reporting prompted widespread republication of the full transcript across mainstream news organizations [4] [5].
1. What the published transcript contains and who first made it public
The published verbatim transcript records Trump boasting about kissing and groping women, saying "I moved on her… I did try and fuck her," and the now‑notorious line "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy," language that was circulated widely after the tape emerged in October 2016; The Washington Post obtained the recording from NBC archives and published its report and video, which led to full transcripts appearing at multiple outlets [4] [1] [3]. Major publishers reproduced the unedited exchange, citing the same 2005 bus conversation on the way to a Days of Our Lives set [1] [2].
2. Where the full transcript can be read online (primary republications)
The BBC published an item titled "US election: Full transcript of Donald Trump's obscene videotape" that includes the full exchange and remains an accessible source for the verbatim text [1]. Other outlets that posted the complete transcript at the time include The Independent and Mic, both of which reproduced the full lewd exchange in articles that accompanied their reporting of the video [2] [3]. Some archival projects and academic sites, such as NYU’s Verbatim Performance Lab, have also preserved the unedited dialogue as part of performance or research efforts [6].
3. Legal and evidentiary context for the transcript’s use
The tape and its transcript were later introduced as evidence or referenced in multiple legal proceedings and reporting about them: courts and prosecutors cited the recording when it was used in litigation connected to E. Jean Carroll’s claims, and judges noted the tape in rulings and evidentiary decisions related to defamation and sexual‑assault litigation [4] [5] [7]. News coverage of those cases repeatedly referenced the same transcript language first disseminated after The Washington Post published the tape [5].
4. Disputes, denials, and how outlets presented the material
While the recording’s voice was identified as Trump’s and publicly acknowledged by him at the time, Trump and some allies later questioned or suggested the tape was fake or characterized it as “locker‑room banter,” a position documented in reporting about his reactions in subsequent years [8] [9]. News organizations that published full transcripts framed them as unedited reproductions of the audio obtained from NBC/Washington Post‑sourced material, and some third‑party sites reposted the New York Times transcription credited to Penn Bullock and others [10] [5].
5. How to verify and the best single sources to cite
For a single, reliable published version of the full transcript, consult the BBC’s full transcript page [1] or the contemporaneous Washington Post multimedia report that released the original audio and accompanying partial transcript (the Post is referenced in multiple later articles and legal briefs) [4] [5]. Independent reproductions such as those in The Independent and Mic match the BBC’s verbatim version and provide accessible, archived copies of the entire exchange [2] [3]. Reporting limitations: this synthesis relies on outlets that republished the transcript; if a reader needs the original NBC archive file, that is held in NBC’s records and was first disclosed to the public through The Washington Post’s reporting [4].