‘ Today’ cuts Billy Bush over tape
Billy Bush has been cut from NBC’s Today show for his role in Donald Trump’s lewd talk about women in a 2005 hotmike tape. Settlement details were not immediately disclosed.
The end came Monday afternoon after the network spent more than a week negotiating the terms of departure with Bush and his crisis lawyer.
Hours earlier, a CNN interview with Melania Trump was released in which she said Bush “egged on” Trump. She said Bush and Trump were engaged in “boy talk” and that Trump was “led on, like egged on, from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.”
A note went out to NBC staff from executive producer Noah Oppenheim onMonday, announcing that “Billy Bush will be leaving the TODAY show’s 9 am hour, effective today. While he was a new member of the TODAY team, he was a valued colleague and longtime member of the broader NBC family. We wish him success as he goes forward.”
Bush released his own statement. “I am deeply grateful for the conversations I’ve had with my daughters, and for all of the support from family, friends and colleagues. I look forward to what lies ahead,” he said.
Thus ends Bush’s time at Today, NBC’s beleaguered morning show, where Bush was promoted to co- host the third hour this summer, after 12 years as an anchor on the network’ s entertainmentnews show, Access Hollywood.
Bush’s fate hinged on what he knew about Trump’s toxic tape, when he knew it and whether and when he told his new bosses at NBC News about it.
Bush, 45, could not have been indifferent to the ground- changing impact of the tape in presidential politics: He’s the nephew of former president George H. W. Bush and cousin to former president George W. Bush and his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was trounced by Trump in the GOP primary.
In 2005, when Trump was the star of NBC’s The Apprentice and Bush was an Access host, they came together on an Access bus to tape a visit to a soap opera set.
While both were miked, Trump was recorded talking in obscene terms about groping women by their genitals, trying to pressure Bush’s married co- host Nancy O’Dell into a sexual relationship, and claiming he could get away with anything because he was a “star.” During the misogynistic conversation, Bush laughed and encouraged him.
For 11 years, the recording remained in an Access vault, until someone at the show unearthed it and Access and NBC News began preparing a report on it. Then the tape was leaked to TheWashington Post on Oct. 7.
It caused instant turmoil in Trump’s campaign: He at first dismissed it as mere “locker- room talk,” then apologized, then returned to discounting it as insignificant and irrelevant “words.”
Meanwhile, the tape posed a problem for Bush, who issued a contrite statement hours after the tape leaked, blaming his youth and immaturity at the time. ( He was 33, married and the father of daughters.)
On Oct. 9, NBC announced it was suspending Bush, effective the next day.
“This is the biggest story of the political season, and he knew about it and did not report it. A journalist’s job is to report the news, not cover it up,” said University of Maryland broadcast journalism professor and ex- NBC News stafferMark Feldstein.