Because he interviewed Donald Trump so many times over the years, Howard Stern has become an unlikely central figure in this year’s presidential election, most notably by getting Trump to go on the record in favor of the Iraq War in 2002. But the SiriusXM host rarely discusses politics, which makes his latest comments this week about the Republican nominee and his own role in the race significant. “None of this was hidden,” Stern said on his show Tuesday about Trump’s most outrageous statements. “This is who Trump is. He was always bombastic. He always rated women. He always talked in a misogynistic, sexist kind of way, but he did it sort of proudly and out in the open; and he still won the Republican primary. In one sense, the fact that we do an interview and people’s personalities come out, I’m very proud of that.”

“I, certainly, in a million years, I didn’t expect Trump to seriously run for president,” Stern added. “All the times he came on the show, he was a very good sport and he was in the spirit of the show. He’s been very friendly toward me, friendly toward the show, always coming on, so I certainly wasn’t going to fuck him over by releasing those tapes.” He went on to say that he is “proud in the sense that I don’t think anybody else does an interview the way this show does,” adding, “Now those words are biting him in the ass, but in general, we have a different kind of interviewing process than any other place. Which is why, all of the sudden, everyone, CNN, NBC, Fox, they have to turn to our tapes because it’s a real conversation.”