Lawyer: Billy Bush Couldn't Tell Trump to Shut Up

High-powered attorney is handling NBC exit
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 14, 2016 4:07 AM CDT
Lawyer: Billy Bush Was Just Doing His Job
Bush was heard on the 2005 recording laughing at Trump's comments and egging him on.   (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Billy Bush has got a new lawyer—and it looks like he won't be leaving NBC without a fight. Marshall Grossman, described by the Hollywood Reporter as "one of Los Angeles' fiercest and most well-respected attorneys," has joined the legal team representing Bush in talks over his exit from the network, and he says the Today show host was just doing his job when he laughed at Trump's crude comments about women in a 2005 recording.

Bush, an Access Hollywood co-host at the time, was interviewing an NBC star and didn't have much choice about playing along, Grossman says. If he had "been passive" or told Trump to shut up, "Billy would have been out of a job the next day," the lawyer says. An insider tells Us magazine Bush is "definitely gone" from the Today show because network chiefs "don't see any way he can go back on morning TV after this." (Here's Billy Bush's replacement, at least for now.)

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