HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): The crisis in Donald Trump's campaign was triggered by an exclusive from one newspaper reporter. And joining us from Washington is David Fahrenthold, a reporter for The Washington Post. David, you can't reveal the unnamed source who led you to this footage of Donald Trump and Billy Bush a decade ago of course, but is it fair to say the person wanted to damage Trump's candidacy?
DAVID FAHRENTHOLD: I can't really say anything about the source, so -- and I don't think I really even know. So, no, I can't really address that question.
KURTZ: You're saying you don't know the source's motivation? Because sometimes newspapers try to at least describe the motivation of somebody who brings in information but doesn't want to be named.
FAHRENTHOLD: In this case we haven't. We haven't really said anything at all about the source. So, yeah, I can't really say more than nothing.
KURTZ: OK. Can you even say whether somebody wanted this out quickly because, after all, Access Hollywood had this in the archives, could have dug this up anytime in the past year, and when you called Access Hollywood for comment you had to figure you might be in a race to break this story.
FAHRENTHOLD: That's right. We knew that was the risk. We called NBC and Billy Bush's folks around noon to 1 [p.m.] on Friday and knew, yeah, that was the risk. Obviously, this footage was theirs originally, so there was a risk that they would get there before us, but we had to take that risk. We wanted to call them to make sure that the tape was authentic, that there was no concern that we were being hoaxed.
KURTZ: Any hesitation at all in disclosing what was obviously meant to be a private conversation?
FAHRENTHOLD: No. No hesitation about that at all. We are talking about the guy who is running for president of the United States wearing a microphone. If this had been somehow a secret bug put in his office in Trump Tower or something like that, maybe you would have to have a different -- you know, wonder whether he knew he was being mic'd. But he certainly was wearing a microphone, you can see that later in the tape. So, no, no compunction about that at all.
