- Professional golfer... what a life.
- In the next minute, I will be entirely naked. In the minute after that, fully dressed.
- I'm a blue-shirt guy.
- I was a choir boy for 3 years in high school at St. George's in Newport, Rhode Island.
- I have the iPad and I love Words With Friends.
- I don't do politics. I just like to laugh.
- Everybody thinks the Bushes are from Texas. I've been there twice.
- Dinner, basketball game, four guys - classic.
- I'm not slick. I'm not polished. I think my strength is in reacting.
- 100 million iPhones don't lie. What an amazing man. He is the apple of all of our i's. We have an i everything and its all so amazing. (On Steve Jobs).
- In radio I had one, maybe two people who cared about getting it done. I'd really be a loser if I forgot where I came from. So I show them the love. And how hard is it really to be interested in someone's life?
- Entertainment Tonight (1981) and Extra (1994), they are too salacious. They go, Oooh, Katie Couric just broke up with X. Access Hollywood (1996) is really good entertainment news. It's not dirty, and we don't get cheap.
- Steadman! Any guy that's got Oprah as a girlfriend, I mean that's a good dude. I want to talk to him.
- [on leaving The Today Show] I am deeply grateful for the conversations I've had with my daughters, and for all of the support from family, friends and colleagues.
- [on explaining the lewd taped interview with Donald Trump to his oldest daughter] My 15-year-old, Mary, called me from boarding school, and she was in tears, she said Dad, Dad, Dad, and I said Everything is going to be fine, Mary. Everything's going to be OK. It's just instinctively what you say to your daughter. And she said, "No, why were you laughing at the things that he was saying on that bus, Dad? They weren't funny. It hit really hard, and I stopped for a second, and I said, I have no answer for that that's any good. I am really sorry. That was Dad in a bad moment a long time ago. You know me. I am really sorry that you had to hear and see that. I love you. She needed to hear that, and I certainly needed to tell her that.
- [on what he thought was going to happen when the lewd taped interview with Donald Trump was first leaked] I thought that we would work through it and we would address people. I put together an apology right away, the one you saw; I told people that I was ashamed and embarrassed. And I was. So, in the beginning, I thought, OK, we'll go and own up to this moment. Then I got home, and it started to become apparent that I would not be returning [to the Today Show. It hurt a lot, and I fell apart. But I had to put aside those feelings and get through legal things. I never had a legal team; I had never had a publicist before.
- [on describing the past seven and a half months since the lewd taped interview with Donald Trump was leaked] It's been a roller coaster. If you start from the day everything happened, Friday, Oct. 7, it was just instant shock. Things were happening way too fast, and a media circus developed. I've never been the type that the paparazzi would be interested in. So that early part was just chaos. But then things progressed, and when you have a big, traumatic event, you go through stages, and it led to acceptance and understanding. And then I found myself in a place of soul searching. And I developed a commitment to become a better, fuller man.
- on explaining the lewd taped interview with Donald Trump to his other daughters] The little one is 12, and she has made the decision not to ever watch [the Trump tape]. And my 18-year-old is more of a fighter. She was like, alright, who do I need to take out? And my wife, Sydney, knows the environment and the atmosphere I was in at the time, and she knows very well the person she married. She has been very supportive from the very beginning.
- [on downtime, and the are off-camera moments with Donald Trump] there wasn't much interaction. He sort of talks and performs, and everybody reacts. And the topics were usually golf, gossip or women. And boy do I wish this was a golf day. But I always had a nervous energy through these situations because he also decided a lot of times from day to day, moment to moment, who he liked, who was in and who was out, and my job was to remain in. I needed to be in, or maybe I'd be out. Looking back on what was said on that bus, I wish I had changed the topic. I wish I had said Does anyone want water? or it looks like it's gonna rain. He liked TV and competition. I could've said, can you believe the ratings on whatever? I didn't have the strength of character to do it.
- [on how important it was to interview Trump when he was still working at Access Hollywood] It was 2005, the second season of The Apprentice. The first season ended with 44 million viewers watching. It was a bona fide television phenomenon. So, he was the biggest star, not just on the network with which Access Hollywood is affiliated but on TV, period. And so, I spent a lot of time with Trump. He was my main assignment. He was the core of my job for a period of time there, because if we could get him three times a week in exclusive-type situations, he was always going to say something that was headlineworthy. And Access Hollywood was certainly interested in that. So that was my job, and I did it well. I got access to Trump. And in my job, there's a lot of downtime, and there are off-camera moments where you have a short period of time to, in a chameleon-like way, connect with people. If it's Martha Stewart, I would tell her about the new organic garden that I just started growing in my backyard.
- [on how he felt being fired and Donald Trump became president]] I will admit the irony is glaring. Trump has his process for his participation in the tape, and I have mine. I had to turn this into a positive. Robin Roberts' mother has this quote, Make your mess your message. And so, I have that opportunity. I've come out of this with a deeper understanding of how women can connect to the feeling of having to fight extra hard for an even playing field. The ground isn't even. Maybe it's improving, but still it isn't even. When a woman watches that tape and this is what really hit me, they may be asking themselves, is that what happens when I walk out of a room? When I walk out of a meeting, is that what they're saying about me? Are they sizing me up? I can't live with that. If a moment like that arose again, I would shut it down quickly. I am in the women-raising business, exclusively. I have three daughters: Mary, Lillie, Josie and I care very much about the world and the people they encounter.
- [on what he would have said if NBC had given you the opportunity to appear on Today after the lewd taped interview was leaked] I would have said, I am deeply embarrassed. I sit before you every morning, and I have on a different show on Access Hollywood Live many mornings, and I hope you know the person you're looking at and have developed an opinion about is the real me. You aren't wrong about that. I am ashamed. Going forward, you can be sure that I will not participate in anything like that. And I will keep my eyes out and do what I can to stop it from happening.
- [on how frustrating was it for you to not be able to tell your own side of the story when so many other people were] I'd like to say I didn't read any of the items, but that's not the case. I did. Many of them were very hurtful. To be the butt of monologue jokes that's all hurtful. Having been in the job as long as I have, I developed a fairly thick skin. My skin is definitely thicker now, and my heart is a little softer underneath it. But I will say I think everybody should have the opportunity to apologize.
- [on if he thinks Trump described the interview as locker room banter is a fair characterization] No. I'm in a lot of locker rooms, I am an athlete, and no, that is not the type of conversation that goes on or that I've participated in.
- [on how Donald Trump approaches women] I felt that, in that moment, he was being typically Donald, which is performing and shocking. Almost like Andrew Dice Clay, the stand-up comedian: Does he really do the things that he's saying or is that his act? And in Donald's case, I equated it that way. When he said what he said, I'd like to think if I had thought for a minute that there was a grown man detailing his sexual assault strategy to me, I'd have called the FBI.
- [if he had heard Donald Trump speak like that about women before lewd taped interview] I don't recall anything to that degree. But he's a provocateur. Shocking statements flow like wine from him. And he likes to captivate an audience.
- [on if he has heard from Trump since the lewd taped interview] I did not. I haven't spoken to him since before he announced he was running for president.
- [on if he knew how the interview was going to be released to the world] I did not know. I just knew of the existence of the tape. I mean, I'd known about the existence of the tape for 11 years. I remember the day.
- [if he thinks Trump regrets what he said in the lewd taped interview] I don't know. I don't know.
- [if he thinks Trump is different now that he's in the White House when compared when he knew him before] I don't know what stark revelations that he's had. I have to imagine he's come across some pretty jarring information and realities about the job. I would assume, but I don't know. He has confidence in abundance, that's for sure.
- [when asked if he voted for Trump] You're asking a journalist the way he voted? I've never made politics and prior votes public knowledge. I'm a registered independent, I'll tell you that.
- [on how he thinks think that the tape should come out] I thought it would certainly be interesting for people to know because I think a lot of people were making up their minds about Trump. So, yes, I understand that people would want to know about it. You never thought to go to your NBC bosses and say, Hey, there's a tape you should listen to here. They did that on their own. I didn't need to. Enough people knew.
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