Trump was so scared of Melania when the 'Access Hollywood' tape came out, it took him 2 hours to summon up the courage to face her, new book says

• Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump hesitated two hours before facing Melania Trump when the "Access Hollywood" tape resurfaced in October 2016, according to a new book on the first lady.
• The tape shows Trump bragging on a hot mic about his attempts to kiss women without asking and saying "grab 'em by the pussy."
• When the tape was played to Trump's 2016 campaign team, he appeared "frightened" to see her, a source told "The Art of Her Deal" author Mary Jordan. An excerpt of the book was published on CBS News.

Donald Trump took two hours to face his wife after the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape was released in 2016, according to a new book about Melania Trump.

An excerpt from "The Art of Her Deal," a forthcoming profile of the first lady by Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan, was published on CBS News.

It includes details on the immediate fallout when Donald Trump, then the Republican nominee for president, was first shown the old footage in which he spoke in lewd terms to "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush about trying to "f---" married women and said: "Grab 'em by the pussy."

Donald Trump, along with then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and several other advisers, was shown the tape by then-campaign press secretary Hope Hicks on the 25th floor of Trump Tower, according to Jordan.

Melania Trump, who had been married to Donald Trump at the time of the recording, was "the elephant not in the room," Christie is quoted as saying.

The Washington Post published the 2005 tape on October 7, 2016, one month before the presidential election.

According to Jordan's book, the room went dead silent after the tape was shown.

One unnamed person in the room told Jordan: "He turned red; red was coming up his neck to his ears. I think he understood early on that it was going to create ramifications for him at home, too."

Christie told Jordan: "Everybody was saying, 'You should go upstairs and see Melania. Why don't you go upstairs now and see Melania?' And he was not rushing to go up there."

Christie added: "I said to him, 'It ain't going to get any easier. The longer you wait, it's not going to get any easier.'"

An unnamed sourced told Jordan: "That night he seemed frightened to go face his wife."

The excerpt also describes a calm reaction from Melania Trump when Donald Trump finally got in the elevator to see her upstairs two hours later.

Melania Trump had been a strong believer in her husband's presidential chances and was more concerned that Donald Trump could have ruined those chances, Jordan wrote.

Ten days after the leak, on October 17, 2016, Melania Trump defended her husband in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper. The comments were just "boy talk" that he had been egged on to join, she told Cooper, adding that she had accepted his apology.

The White House did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Jordan's book also says Melania Trump refused to move into the White House in 2017 in an effort to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement and describes tensions between the first lady and Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter.

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