What controversial comments did Donald Trump make on Howard Stern's show?
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Executive summary
Donald Trump, a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show for decades, made numerous explicit, lewd and provocative comments during those appearances — including graphic discussions of sex, jokes about infidelity, and remarks about women that media outlets later called misogynistic — and audio from some of those interviews resurfaced and amplified controversy during his political career [1]. In at least one widely shared clip from 2006, Trump appears to mouth an affirmation after a guest calls him a “sexual predator,” a detail investigated and contextualized by fact-checkers [2].
1. The raw, lewd on-air persona: graphic sex talk and infidelity
Across multiple Stern interviews Trump spoke candidly and crudely about sexual matters, answering questions about sleeping with multiple women in a day by saying “I like sex” and engaging in explicit banter about models and fidelity that outlets later summarized as part of a long record of misogynistic, lewd conversations [1]. News coverage and archival reporting emphasize that those segments were framed as entertainment on Stern’s shock-jock platform, but when the Washington Post’s 2005 hot-mic tape emerged it re-cast Trump’s Stern-era remarks as evidence of a pattern of crude behavior that many journalists described as “much darker” than simple ribaldry [1].
2. “It’s okay to call my daughter a ‘piece of ass’” — a headline example
One of the most explicit lines journalists cited from Stern-era interviews was Trump’s response to suggestive talk about his daughter: a reported remark that it was “okay to call my daughter a ‘piece of ass’” during Stern conversations, which publications like CNN highlighted when assembling a record of his on-air comments and the subsequent public outrage after other tapes surfaced [1]. That quote and similar exchanges were repeatedly invoked in 2016 coverage to illustrate how Trump’s past radio behavior meshed with broader criticism of his treatment of women.
3. The “sexual predator” clip and how it’s been interpreted
A 2006 clip in which Trump appears to mouth “It’s true” or “That’s true” after someone on Stern’s show calls him a sexual predator circulated online and sparked claims that he was admitting to predatory behavior; Snopes’ investigation confirmed the video authentically shows him mouthing those words but cautioned about how short, decontextualized clips can be misleading without surrounding context [2]. Fact-checkers stressed the clip’s authenticity while also noting that viral captions and social posts often amplified a single moment into broader, sometimes inaccurate narratives about intent and admission [2].
4. Frequency and intimacy of the Stern relationship, and why those comments mattered later
Trump was one of Stern’s most frequent guests for years, appearing repeatedly across decades and even showing up in “best of” compilations, which meant the shock-jock-era comments were not obscure but part of a long, public catalog that reporters and critics later mined as Trump sought political office [3] [4]. Journalists and commentators have observed that what had been framed as celebrity bravado on a late-night radio show became politically salient when opponents and the media highlighted these statements as evidence of character and pattern [4].
5. Backlash, reinterpretation, and Stern’s own rebuttals
When old clips and Stern’s later criticisms of Trump resurfaced, both men traded barbs: Trump later attacked Stern as “weak, pathetic and disloyal,” accusing him of “going woke,” while Stern defended revisiting or refusing to replay old material and sharply criticized Trump and his supporters on-air — a dynamic that turned vintage Stern interviews into live political ammunition for both sides [4] [5]. Reporting shows media outlets framed Stern’s candid condemnations of Trump supporters and his embrace of being “woke” as part of the escalation between the two personalities [3] [6].
6. What reporting does not establish or leaves ambiguous
Available sources document the explicit quotes, viral clips and later disputes, but they do not uniformly provide full transcripts or complete contextual tapes for every contentious line from Stern-era interviews, and major outlets caution against treating short viral clips as definitive proof of intent without corroborating context [1] [2]. Any definitive legal or forensic judgment about admissions or behavior cannot be drawn from the snippets alone; reporting limits allow only description of what was said and how it was later interpreted and amplified by media and social platforms [2].