‘Victim’ Trump scoffs at women accusers
DONALD Trump lashed out against what he called “phony” accusations of inappropriate sexual contact levelled by several women, two more of whom came forward on Friday.
He denied sexual misconduct, and depicted himself as victim of a media and establishment “smear campaign”.
President Barack Obama warned that US democracy was at stake in the November 8 election because of the Republican candidate.
As Trump spoke at a rally, Summer Zervos, once a contestant on his reality TV show The Apprentice, accused him of kissing, groping and thrusting his genitals at her in a meeting at a California hotel in 2007.
The Trump campaign said he “vaguely remembered” Zervos, and released a statement from John Barry, said to be Zervos’s first cousin, claiming Zervos praised Trump for years.
Barry implied Zervos was upset as Trump refused to visit her California restaurant during primaries.
Former aspiring model Kristin Anderson told the Washington Post that Trump sidled up to her in a nightclub in the early 1990s, reached under her skirt and touched her vagina through her panties.
They are the latest in a string of women accusing him of predatory sexual misconduct.
The October 7 release of a 2005 audio of Trump bragging he could get away with grabbing women’s crotches because of his fame sparked a torrent of allegations against him.
“Lies, lies, lies,” Trump trumpeted on Friday at a rally in North Carolina, referring to sex claims reported by the New York Times and other media. “I have no idea who these women are. The stories are fiction.”
He mocked Jessica Leeds, who said he groped and kissed her on a plane in the 1980s, saying: “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.” The crowd laughed.
At a rally in Charlotte, he said he was “the victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country”.
“They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.
“The political establishment is trying to stop us because they know that we’re a threat to their totally corrupt controls.”
Trump hit at billionaire Carlos Slim, the largest shareholder of the New York Times. “Carlos Slim as you know comes from Mexico. He’s given many millions of dollars to the Clintons and their initiative.”
Slim spokesman Arturo Elias said Slim had never met Trump and was “not interested in his personal life in the slightest”.
Obama said on Friday that Trump was a dictator in the making and decried his claims that the election was rigged.
“C’mon, man, you don’t start complaining about the refs before the game’s even done,” said Obama. “You just play the game, right?”
In Seattle, Washington, on Friday, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton called the election “incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side with my opponent,” she said. “It hurts our democracy.” According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Trump is trailing Clinton among women voters by 20 points. — AFP
They know that we’re a threat to their totally corrupt controls You don’t start complaining about the refs before the game’s done