The Access Hollywood tape was assumed to be fatal to Trump’s evangelical support

Evidence

Remarkably, Trump had become the standard-bearer of the Christian Right. Four weeks before the election, however, the release of the Access Hollywood tape threw everything into question. The video, recorded in the NBC Studios parking lot in 2005, contained footage of Trump bragging about his attempts to seduce a married woman, of kissing women without their consent, of assaulting women—because “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … grab ‘em by the pussy.” This wasn’t the first hint of Trump’s sexual improprieties, but the Access Hollywood tape made the candidate’s sexual indiscretions impossible to ignore. Surely this admission of sexual assault represented a problem for his evangelical supporters, many outsiders assumed. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 595

Categorization

• QUESTION: This sets up the pivotal test case for the book’s central thesis — whether evangelicals abandoned Trump or shrugged at the tape. The reader should watch whether Du Mez shows continuity here.