Howard Stern On Donald Trump Interviews: Playing Them Would Be A ‘Betrayal’

An unlikely ally of Donald Trump has emerged amid the latest round of scandals: Howard Stern. During his return to the air on Monday morning after a week off, Stern addressed his damning interviews with the Republican nominee. Several of Trump’s most recent scandals can be traced back to the sexually explicit interviews he gave on Stern’s show between 2002 and 2013.

"These conversations that I had with Donald Trump weren't done in private like the Billy Bush tapes; this was on the radio," Stern said.

He went on to say it would be a "betrayal" to dig the old interviews up and play them on air. "Why don't I play all the tapes? I have to tell you why: I feel Donald Trump did the show in an effort to be entertaining and have fun with us, and I feel like it would be a betrayal to any of our guests if I sat there and played them now where people are attacking him."

In his 40-year career as a radio host, Stern has built up a reputation for getting his interviewees to reveal shocking information for entertainment value. Trump, he said, was no different.

"I knew I had a guy who loved to talk about sex ... I had a guy who loved to evaluate women on a scale of 1-10. These are avenues I went down because I knew it would entertain the audience," Stern said.

On past appearances on "The Howard Stern Show," the billionaire businessman spoke at length about his sex life and his opinions on women who came up in conversation. He called Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy,” said it was okay to call his daughter a “piece of a--” and suggested a then-teenaged Lindsay Lohan would be great in bed.

In his 25-minute segment on Monday, Stern said he was surprised the media didn't find Trump’s well-known interviews earlier and laughed off the idea that anyone has recently "discovered" the offensive material. "There's nothing to find. As the guy said, they were right there in the open.”

While Stern considers Trump a friend, he is a professed Hillary Clinton supporter, telling The Washington Post, "I believe she would be an extremely powerful president."