TRUMP DEFIANT – AT 12:18 P.M. ET:  It isn't exactly Churchill's, "We shall never surrender," but Donald Trump this morning is insisting that he will never quite the presidential race.  The fact that this discussion is held, however, should be frightening enough for him.  From Fox: 

Donald Trump said Saturday there is “zero chance” he’ll quit the White House race after the release of a damaging audio tape and the ensuing calls from fellow Republicans and others for him to step aside and even let running-mate Mike Pence become the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump, trailing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by single digits with four week to go before Election Day, told The Wall Street Journal: “There is zero change I will quit. I’m getting unbelievable support.”

The 2005 audio tape, and an accompanying video tape, released by The Washington Post and NBC on Friday, recorded a conversation between Trump and "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush in which Trump described an attempt to have sex with a married woman.

Trump also brags about women letting him kiss and grab them because he is famous.

"When you're a star they let you do it," Trump says. "You can do anything." He later used a crude term for part of a woman's anatomy.

Also on Saturday, Trump told The Post that we would not drop out of the race.

“I’d never withdraw,” Trump, a New York real estate mogul and former reality TV star, told the newspaper in a phone interview. “I’ve never withdrawn in my life. No, I’m not quitting this race. I have tremendous support.”

Meanwhile, top Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump, with some going as far as to call for him to end his White House bid.

The two-highest-ranking Capitol Hill Republicans -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan -- chastised Trump for his lewd comments on the tape about women.

“I am sickened by what I heard,” Ryan, Wisconsin, said Friday night after the tape was released and before Trump apologized. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.”

COMMENT:  The election is one calendar month from today.  Trump is clearly despised in many circles, and he's earned it.  But, as we've noted, Hillary Clinton has also earned the "despised" title.  She won't win the election, if present trends continue.  Trump will lose it.  And Americans will wake up to a crook in the White House, a new president married to a former president who himself is a serial sex harasser and a disbarred lawyer. 

October 8, 2016