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Donald Trump Campaigns in North Carolina Donald Trump Assails His Accusers as Liars, and Unattractive
(35 minutes later)
Donald J. Trump speaks to voters in Greensboro, N.C., on Friday, after a week in which he has faced criticism for speaking about women in vulgar and demeaning terms and sought to fend off accusations of sexual assault. GREENSBORO, N.C. — Donald J. Trump used a campaign speech in North Carolina on Friday to attack the women accusing him of sexual assault or unwelcome advances as fame-seekers and liars, while portraying himself as the victim of a vast conspiracy of the news media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In an attempt to turn attention away from his campaign’s troubles, Mr. Trump addressed supporters in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday, using conspiratorial language more typically heard from the political fringe. Speaking at a rally here, Mr. Trump dismissed as “total fiction” the accounts of a growing number of women who say he groped them or made unwanted sexual advances toward them. But he offered no evidence to cast doubt on their stories.
“Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors,” Mr. Trump said, adding that nothing less than the fate of humankind was at stake in this election. Instead, Mr. Trump assailed their motives, suggesting that they might have been paid off. And Mr. Trump referred to one woman, Jessica Leeds, who said Mr. Trump groped her on an airplane in the 1980s, as “that horrible woman,” saying Ms. Leeds would not have drawn his interest.
“This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over our government,” Mr. Trump said. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice,” Mr. Trump said of Ms. Leeds, who is now 74.
Mr. Trump has signaled that he will ramp up his provocative language in the campaign’s closing weeks. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Mr. Trump was expected to claim that the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who is a New York Times shareholder and a donor to the Clinton Foundation, is part of a global conspiracy to bring down his candidacy. He was similarly dismissive of Natasha Stoynoff, a writer for People magazine who accused Mr. Trump of making sexual advances during an interview. “Check out her Facebook page, you’ll understand,” Mr. Trump said.
We will be following along with the speech here. Escalating his war on the news media to deflect from accumulating allegations that he mistreated women, Mr. Trump also accused The New York Times, and Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who is its largest individual holder of common shares, of conspiring with Hillary Clinton’s campaign “to try and keep their grip on our country.”
“The corrupt media is trying to do everything in their power to stop our movement, believe me,” he said.
“No media is more corrupt than the failing New York Times,” Mr. Trump said. He noted that Mr. Slim comes from Mexico” and was a prolific donor “to the Clintons and their initiatives.”
“Reporters at The New York Times are not journalists,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and Hillary Clinton.”
He said the “foreign corporations” and their executives were trying to “decide the outcome” of the election, and pleaded with his supporters, saying: “We cannot let this happen.”
Mr. Trump continued to get battered Friday by fresh accounts of how he forced himself on women. The Washington Post quoted a woman, Kristin Anderson, who described how Mr. Trump slid his fingers up her skirt and touched her vagina through her underwear at a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s. It was only when she turned to look at him, she recounted, that she realized it was Mr. Trump. A Trump spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, denied Ms. Anderson’s allegation, calling it “phony” and “totally ridiculous.”
And in Los Angeles, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Mr. Trump’s television show, “The Apprentice,” accused Mr. Trump of kissing her forcefully, grabbing her breasts and thrusting his pelvis into her when they met to discuss her career prospects at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007. Ms. Zervos said she had expected a dinner meeting but was instead escorted to Mr. Trump’s private bungalow, where she said he tried to seduce her.
“He asked me to sit next to him,” Ms. Zervos said at a news conference. “He grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me aggressively and placed his hand on my breast.” She said she managed to elude his advances but nonetheless went ahead with the meeting.
Mr. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ms. Zervos’s account.