Trump: "I Sort of Get Away With" Walking Through Pageant Dressing Room While Contestants Are Naked

Donald Trump's campaign firmly denied in May that the Republican presidential nominee walked through Miss USA pageant dressing rooms while the contestants were naked, but audio recordings unearthed and published Saturday by CNN vindicates the contestant who brought the issue to light.

Bridget Sullivan, a former Miss New Hampshire, told BuzzFeed last spring that Trump would walk through the dressing rooms to stare at the naked contestants. The campaign denied the allegations, but audio of Trump bragging about doing exactly that vindicated Sullivan, whose claims the campaign dismissed as "totally false."

"I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed ... No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it…. 'Is everyone OK'? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. 'Is everybody OK?'" Trump is heard saying in the recording. "And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that."

Trump and Stern continue the episode by agreeing that the pageant had shifted its priority in undesirable ways by recruiting women who were intelligent and boasted impressive careers. CNN reports: