GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Steering his campaign toward controversy yet again, Donald Trump vowed Saturday to sue every woman who has accused him of sexual assault or other inappropriate behavior. He called them “liars” whose allegations he blamed Democrats for orchestrating.
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Steering his campaign toward controversy yet again, Donald Trump vowed Saturday to sue every woman who has accused him of sexual assault or other inappropriate behavior. He called them “liars” whose allegations he blamed Democrats for orchestrating.
Trump’s blunt threat of legal action eclipsed his planned focus on serious-minded policy during a speech in Gettysburg. Though his campaign had billed the speech as a chance for Trump to lay out a to-do list for his first 100 days as president, he seemed unable to restrain himself from re-litigating grievances with Hillary Clinton, the media and especially the women who have come forward in recent days.
“All of these liars will be sued once the election is over,” Trump said. He added later: “I look so forward to doing that.”
Nearly a dozen women have publicly accused Trump of unwanted advances or sexual assault in the weeks since a 2005 recording emerged in which the former reality TV star boasted of kissing women and groping their genitals without their consent. The latest came on Saturday, when an adult film actress said the billionaire kissed her and two other women on the lips “without asking for permission” when they met him after a golf tournament in 2006.
Trump has denied all the allegations, while insisting some of the women weren’t attractive enough for him to want to pursue.
“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” he said. Without offering evidence, he surmised that Clinton or the Democratic National Committee had put the women up to it.
Speaking to reporters aboard her campaign plane, Clinton said: “I saw where our opponent Donald Trump went to Gettysburg, one of the most extraordinary places in American history, and basically said if he’s president he’ll spend his time suing women who have made charges against him based on his behavior.” She also said the suggestion that Democrats or her campaign were encouraging women to level accusations against Trump “inaccurate.”
Trump’s broadside against the women came at the start of an otherwise substantive speech that sought to weave the many policy ideas he has put forward into a single, cohesive agenda that he said he would pursue aggressively during his first three months in office.
The Republican nominee vowed to lift restrictions on domestic energy production, label China as a currency manipulator and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, familiar themes to supporters who have flocked to his rallies this year.