A little more than an hour before the Sunday night presidential debate, GOP nominee Donald Trump started a feed on Facebook Live with Bill and Hillary Clinton accusers Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broddrick, Paula Jones and Kathy Shelton sitting on both sides of him and held a brief press conference of about three minutes in duration.
“Mr. Trump, does your star power allow you to touch women without their consent,” one reporter asked before Trump began to speak.
The Republican nominee ignored the question.
“Thank you very much for coming and these four very courageous women have asked to be here and it was our honor to help them,” Trump said. “And I think they’re each going to make just an individual short statement and we’re going to have a little meeting and we’re going to see you at the debate.”
He asked Bill Clinton accuser Jones to kick things off. In the 1990s, she charged that as Arkansas governor he had exposed himself to her and asked her to “kiss it,” “it” being his penis.
“Well I’m here to support Mr. Trump because he’s going to make American great again and I think everybody else should vote for him. And I think they should all look at the fact that he is a good person. He’s not what what other people have been saying he’s being, like Hillary. So think about that,” Jones said.
Next up was Kathy Shelton, a woman whose alleged rapist Hillary Clinton defended and got off when she was practicing law.
“Yes, I’m also here to support Trump,” Shelton said while wringing her hands nervously.
“At 12 years old, Hillary put me through something that you would never put a 12-year-old through. And she says she’s for women and children. And she was asked last year on what happened and she says she’s supposed to defend whether they they did it or not. Now she’s laughing on tape, saying she know they did it,” she said.
“You went through a lot,” Trump consoled her.
“Yes sir I did,” Shelton replied.
Next up were former Arkansas nursing home administrator Broaddrick and former White House volunteer Willey, who have accused Bill Clinton of rape and sexual assault, respectively.
“Hi I’m Juanita Broaddrick and I’m here to support Donald Trump. I tweeted recently and Mr. Trump retweeted it, that actions speak louder than words. Mr. Trump may have said some bad words but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don’t think there’s any comparrison,” Broaddrick said.
“I’m Kathleen Willey and I’m here to support Donald Trump. The reason, the reason,” Willey said, choking up a bit, “for that is the first day when he announced for president, he said, ‘I love this country and I want America to be great again.’
“And I cried when he said that because I think that this is the greatest country in the world. I think that we can do anything. I think we can accomplish anything. I think we can bring peace to this world. And I think Donald Trump can lead us to that point.”
Rather than shouting questions at the women after the statements, the press scrum repeated the question about whether Trump’s “star power” allowed him to touch women.
At that point Jones cut in energetically.
“Why don’t y’all ask Bill Clinton that? Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that? Go ahead, ask Hillary as well!” Jones said, effectively ending the press conference.
Hillary Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Pallmieri responded in a statement before the debate, “We’re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom.” She called the press conference a “stunt” and boasted that her candidate is “prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way.”
