Radio host Howard Stern speculated that he may have helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election by having him as a popular guest on his show but wished that he could have helped his "obsession" Hillary Clinton become president.
Stern opened up about his role in the election during an interview with ABC's Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos. His latest book, titled Howard Stern Comes Again, includes several interviews with Trump from the 1990s until right before he was elected president.
"Donald Trump, hands down, whenever you put him on the air, now, this is before he was running for president, he was an open book," Stern told Stephanopoulos, adding that Trump would "say anything."
When asked by Stephanopolous if he felt that he had aided Trump's victory by giving him an unfiltered platform, Stern replied: "Absolutely."
"I wanted to see Hillary Clinton win," Stern said. "If she had come on the show — the way I helped Donald was I let him come on and be a personality. Whether you liked him or not ... people related to him as a human being."
Stern added that he was "surprised" when past interviews he had done with the real estate mogul resurfaced throughout the election, including the now-infamous moment when Trump told the radio show host that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was his "personal Vietnam."
In that interview, Trump also said that he should receive a Congressional Medal of Honor for not getting an STD. The comment has since come back to haunt him amid reports that Trump dodged the Vietnam War draft by having a family doctor diagnose him with bone spurs.
Stern said he felt that the media coverage of these interviews was "unfair" to Trump and that many of the comments were taken out of context.
"It was in a very joking scenario," he said. "He was not comparing his life to a Vietnam vet. It was 'Ha-ha-ha and this and that.' When journalists took it and made it serious, I thought it was a little bit unfair."
Stern told CBS Sunday Morning in an interview broadcast on May 12 that Trump had asked for his endorsement, which the radio legend said he couldn't do. Stern had also declined the opportunity to speak at the Republican National Convention in 2016 and expressed his support for Clinton.
"I had to say to Donald on the phone, it was uncomfortable, 'I can't endorse you.' And I haven't heard from him since ... We don't talk at all," Stern told CBS.
About the writer
Alexandra Hutzler is currently a staff writer on Newsweek's politics team. Prior to joining Newsweek in summer 2018, she was ... Read more