Abstract
In October 2016, Donald Trump was in the midst of a hotly contested and sharply divisive presidential campaign. Days before the second presidential debate, The Washington Post posted a video of Trump “having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005.” This video and the firestorm of criticism it provoked threatened to derail his presidential run. Mr. Trump and his wife Melania Trump offered several messages to repair his damaged image. This article analyzes and evaluates these image repair messages concerning Donald Trump’s “Access Hollywood” video. In such a divisive context, the defense had no hope of repairing Trump’s image with the general public (Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million). Even though he lost the popular vote, the business magnate won the Electoral College. We cannot say that the “Access Hollywood” video was solely responsible for Trump’s poor popular vote showing, but it is clear that this defense did not completely dispel the cloud surrounding him.
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