Allegations of Donald Trump’s past misconduct—including the explosive Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasts about groping women—have sent reporters sifting through their news archives in the hopes of digging up more dirt. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times’ Seema Mehta found a good scoop: A 1992 wire report carried in newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, quotes Trump telling two 14-year-old girls, “Wow! Just think—in a couple of years I’ll be dating you.”
The report, which the Tribune published in an entertainment and gossip section alongside blurbs about ABC’s primetime schedule, a canceled Ice-T concert, and the American Music Award nominations, reads as follows:
Donald Trump turned up Monday for a carol sing by a youth choir outside Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel. He asked two of the girls how old they were. After they replied they were 14, Trump said “Wow! Just think—in a couple of years I’ll be dating you.”
This comes on the heels of a recently unearthed Entertainment Tonight segment, also from 1992, in which Trump made a similar joke about a 10-year-old girl. The Tribune headline for the blurb about Trump’s comments to the carol singers? “Such a comedian.” Both Trump’s polling of late and ABC’s Thursday-night lineup suggest that our conception of comedy has changed dramatically over the past two decades.
