What You Need to Know About the Trump Brouhaha

Donald Trump is sorry but staying put, the GOP is in crisis mode, Saturday Night Live is pouncing, down-ballot Republicans are bailing, and the Internet and Sunday shows are alive with the sound of Trump's leaked tape. A look around the landscape, ahead of Sunday night's second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, via the AP and others:

• Trump is tweeting thanks to those standing by him. "Tremendous support (except for some Republican "leadership"). Thank you." And also threats: "So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers - and elections - go down!" Trump also retweeted posts by a woman who accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978.
• It would be nearly impossible to oust Trump from the ticket, GOP leaders tell USA Today, with a former RNC chief saying, "At this point, a vacancy would very likely forfeit the presidency irrevocably."
• Nonsense, says Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who is calling for Trump's ouster. "We've got candidates who can do it. There's still time to do it, but we have to actually do it."
• USA Today has a list of Republicans who have jumped ship.
• But wait, there are more tapes coming out of interviews on the Howard Stern show, ABC News reports.
• Politico conducted a poll in the wake of the tape's release, and finds that 45% of voters think Trump should not drop out, while 39% think he should. The split is pronounced along party lines, with 70% of Dems saying he should quit, while just 12% of Republicans and 13% of Republican women think so.

• Team Clinton thinks Trump has nothing left to lose, and is prepping for him to let loose at Sunday night's debate, reports Politico. The Clinton campaign has a new video out in which it lets Trump clips do all the talking.
• Dispatched as Trump's sole surrogate to the Sunday talk shows as Kellyanne Conway and Chris Christie were recalled, Rudy Giuliani said Trump wouldn't hesitate to talk about "the women that Bill Clinton raped, sexually abused and attacked." "Both sides have sinned. So how about we put that behind us?"
• We knew this Trump all along, Dana Milbank argues in the Washington Post.
• The AP wants to know why this is the straw that broke the camel's back here.
• Tim Kaine says the tape reveals "a pattern of sexual assault" that "is much more than words. There's kind of a piece of the jigsaw puzzle missing in Donald Trump where he does not look at women and consider them as equal to himself."
• Women are reacting to the scandal with rage, reports the New York Times, but many aren't surprised by such language and some even offer Trump support. "It was just men’s talk," says one woman interviewed. "Females, we do the same thing."
• Meanwhile, Nancy O'Dell, the woman Trump was discussing, has spoken.

(More Donald Trump stories.)