Donald Trump unleashed a slew of attacks on Friday against the various women who have accused him of sexual assault, dismissing them as “liars” and joking about one woman’s physical appearance.
“As you have seen, right now I am being viciously attacked with lies and smears,” the Republican presidential nominee said to his supporters at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. “I have no idea who these women are, no idea.”
“I look on television, I think it’s a disgusting thing,” he said of the various women who have been given airtime to discuss instances in which they allege that Trump touched them inappropriately, groped them or forced himself upon them.
“They just come out, some are doing it probably for a little fame,” Trump said. “It’s a total set-up.”
One by one the billionaire ripped apart his accusers, many of whom have shared similar stories about him grabbing their breasts or reaching his hand up their skirts. Trump took particular issue with a People Magazine reporter who, in a first-hand account published Wednesday night, accused him of attacking her while she was visiting his Mar-a-Lago beach club for a story.
“Here’s my question about the dishonest writer from People magazine: why didn’t she write about what happened? Why didn’t she do it 12 years ago?” he asked the crowd.
“She’s a liar. She is a liar,” he said sharply. “These people are sick and the reason she didn’t write it 12 years ago is very simple: it never happened… And let me tell you, if it did happen, 100 percent she would have written [about it].”
Trump carried on, this time mocking Kristen Anderson, a woman who accused him of reaching his hand up her skirt and touching her genitals at Manhattan nightclub in the 1990s. Anderson had come forward and recounted the alleged encounter in a video interview with the Washington Post published earlier on Friday.
“One came out recently where I was sitting alone in some club — I really don’t sit alone that much,” Trump joked. “It’s like unbelievable. Even a simple investigation would have shown these allegations against me — in just about all cases, it’s nonsense. It’s false.”
In reference to another woman, who had accused him of groping her during a flight to New York three decades ago, Trump told his supporters: “She wouldn’t be my first choice.”
While Trump was picking apart each woman’s testimony and claiming he had no connection to them, a former contestant on “The Apprentice” accused him of groping her during a job interview.
Summer Zervos, who appeared on the fifth season of Trump’s reality TV show, claimed through tears during a press conference Friday afternoon that the GOP nominee had asked her to sit next to him and proceeded to kiss her “very aggressively” and then “placed his hand on my breast.”
Despite promising on Thursday to release “substantial evidence” that he claimed would exonerate him and discredit his accusers, Trump has yet to unveil anything.
