Melania Trump defends Trump remarks as "boy talk"

Donald Trump's wife has defended her husband's comments in which he boasted about sexual misconduct, as the Republican presidential candidate struggles to deal with the fallout from leaked tapes of his interview with Billy Bush.

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Melania Trump also criticised Bush for "egging on" the New York businessman to say something crude.

However, the nominee's wife did refer to his comments as "inappropriate".

It was the first time that Melania has spoken publicly about the comments made by her husband, in which he discussed forcing himself on women because he was famous. Since the incident, several women have come forward and accused Trump of sexual assault.

"I was surprised because that is not the man I know," Melania Trump said during the interview.

"I've heard many different stuff, boys talk. The boys, the way they talk when they grow up and they want to sometimes show each other, 'Oh, this and that,' and talking about the girls, but I was surprised, of course."

Trump also told Cooper that she agreed with her husband's claims that the accusations against him were part of a plot by the establishment to conspire against him.

"It was the media, it was NBC, it was Access Hollywood, it was the left-leaning media," she said. "The way it comes out is very organised ... the opposition doesn't want to talk Wikileaks and the emails and Benghazi and all the other stuff, they don’t want to talk about it."

Melania Trump's comments come on the eve of Wednesday's final televised presidential debate, in which the New York tycoon will aim to attack his opponent Hillary Clinton in an effort to salvage his campaign.

Clinton currently has a sizeable lead in the majority of national polls, ahead of the November 8 election.