an enormous military offensive is now under way to oust thousands of terrorists from iraq s second largest city. iraqi and kurdish forces backed by u.s. advisers and air power are bracing for what promises for a fierce and bloody battle. can isis hold on to its last remaining stronghold in iraq. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. we re following breaking news. melania trump speaking out to cnn about the recording that rocked her husband s presidential campaign. she tells anderson cooper she was surprised by donald trump s lewd boasts of groping women, saying it s not the man she knows, but dismisses the remark as boy talk and says trump was egged on by billy bush. we ll hear melania trump in her
that the mike was on, because they were kind of boy talk and he was led on like egged on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff. you feel the host, billy bush, was sort of egging him on? yes, yes. is that language you had heard him use before? no, no. that s why i was surprised. i don t know that person that would talk that way. and that s he would say that kind of stuff in private. i heard many different stuff, boy s talk. the boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other oh, this and that and talking about the girls. but yeah, i was surprised, of course.
you can see the full interview with melania trump later tonight on ac 360. that s at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. let s bring in our panel to discuss. gloria, you watched the interview. are you surprised that she s sort of blaming billy bush for egging on the so-called boy talk, if you will? first of all, let s say this is an incredibly tough position for a political spouse to be in. we saw it with hillary clinton and bill clinton. and now we re seeing it with melania trump. what she s trying to do is explain the inexplicable, and what she did was try and place the became on somebody else other than her husband. whether that is something donald trump said to her or whether that is something she s thinking about in her own mind, i don t think we re ever going to know. we should not have expected melania to come out there and unendorse her husband. she was not going to do that. she was going to defend her husband, and we ve seen women do
late 70s 70s. and baseball willie, pete rose claement, big red machine. i was watching hbo 60s, the whole decade of baseball just different sport. guys stayed with teams, also. yeah. big difference. i m going to get to i know all this boy talk is getting you fudgey. do you have any passion news? i have the los angeles times that s demeaning. mika knows her value. because we re talking about the 1970s, you don t have to behave like the 70s. a quaalude i took just kicked in from 1975. i wish that was the case but unfortunately, i think it s your reality. obviously that shiny jacket from kicked in from 75.
good morning. welcome to early start. i m christine romans. nice to see you. i m john berman. it is tuesday, october 18th. 4:00 a.m. in the east. this morning, melania trump with the first statements of accusing her husband of groping and sexual assault. in an interview with anderson cooper, she rejects the claims stating they are an orchestrated conspiracy. she was asked about the comments on the 2005 access hollywood tape where he bragged about grabbing women s genitals because he was famous. she dismissed that as boy talk and he was egged on by billy bush. this is some of the interview. it was ten days ago.