Donald Trump hit back hard against “vicious” reports that he had allegedly groped women, saying they were “pure fiction,” “outright lies” and promised to provide evidence to prove they were untrue.
“These claims are all fabricated. They’re pure fiction and outright lies. These events never ever happened,” Trump said during a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump is battling allegations that came to light Wednesday after two women told The New York Times in a report that the Republican presidential nominee touched them inappropriately, allegations that were quickly followed by a similar claim in People Magazine.
CNN has not yet independently confirmed either The New York Times or People Magazine accounts. The Trump campaign described the entire Times article as a “fiction” that amounted to “character assassination.” A Trump attorney also issued an open letter to The Times demanding an immediate retraction and apology. The Trump campaign told People Magazine: “This never happened. There is no merit or veracity to this fabricated story.”
Trump said the stories were attacks orchestrated by the “Clinton machine” and its media allies and he said that he was facing the “single greatest pile on in history” because he represented an “existential threat” to the political establishment.
“Let’s be clear on one thing,” Trump said. “The corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism, they’re a political special interest no different than any lobbyist or financial entity with a total political agenda and the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves. And their agenda is to elect Crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy.”
Trump also included an apparent insult to Natasha Stoynoff, the woman from People Magazine in which she alleged that she had been physically attacked by Trump at Mar-A-Lago while she was on assignment in December 2005 writing a profile of his first anniversary with his wife, Melania.
“Take a look, you take a look, look at her, look at her words — you tell me what you think. I don’t think so,” Trump said at his rally.
The GOP nominee said he was willing to take vicious “slings and arrows” for his loyal supporters and said the new claims against him were “preposterous, ludicrous and defy logic” and said that the stories about him had already been discredited.
Trump said that the new allegations against him were proof that he was being punished for leaving the “special club” of establishment insiders.
He said that the election had become an “absolute horror show of lies, deceptions, malicious attacks.”
“Many of my friends and many political experts warned me that this campaign would be a journey to Hell, but they are wrong. It will be a journey to heaven because we will help so many people that are so desperately in need of help.”
Trump said that it was “hurtful” to be slandered and publicly smeared in front of his family.
“What is going on is egregious,” Trump said. “But I also know it is not about me. It is about all of you and it is about our country. It is about all of us together as a country.”