Donald Trump Jr. defended his father on Thursday following a New York Times report on Wednesday night wherein two women alleged that Trump groped them.
“Come on guys, it’s so ridiculous, I’ve never heard anything dumber in my life. All of sudden, two, three weeks before election, someone comes out — it’s not like he hasn’t been in the public eye for 30 years,” Trump Jr. said on Charlotte Morning News on WBT radio. “I think it’s probably a typical New York Times smear campaign. “
Trump’s son added his father might sue The New York Times over their reporting.
“They keep libeling and doing these kind of things I imagine that would be the intention. It’s one thing to report the news, it’s another to try to smear someone’s name time and time again for political motives and political gain,” he said. “So I imagine that would certainly be on his mind.”
Trump also defended his father for his 2005 comments made on a hot mic, first reported by The Washington Post Friday, where his father bragged about force himself on women and grabbing them by the genitals. Trump Jr. said he’s had similar conversations with many people.
“There’s sort of the reality of the situation and then there’s how the media portrays it again. So I mean, listen I know plenty of people,” Trump Jr. said. “I’ve had conversations like that with plenty of people where people use language off color. They’re talking, two guys, amongst themselves. I’ve seen it time and time again. I think it makes him a human. I think it makes him a normal person not a political robot. He hasn’t spent his whole life waiting for this moment to run for the presidency.”
“I think most American people just say, you know what, I’ve probably said those kind of things myself,” he added. “So, we’re not happy that he said, that’s for sure, I get that but I think it means that he’s a human being that he’s a regular person like everyone else. I think that’s what endeared him to the American public.”
Trump Jr. added he thought Friday’s revelations were “nonsense” and that it was “disgusting” the press was talking about it instead of the contents of Wikileaks.
“Over the last 10 days since the Wikileaks stuff broke, each channel has covered essentially nonsense from my father, rumor, innuendo, bad language — they covered that one of the channels I think it said 276 minutes, Wikileaks 8 minutes,” Trump Jr. said. “It’s ridiculous. You’re really suppressing what’s really going on in this country with Hillary Clinton and the fact that she sold America out.”‘
Several women came forward on Wednesday and alleged that Trump had groped them in the past. The allegations came after Trump denied to CNN’s Anderson Cooper during the second presidential that he had every kissed or goped women without their consent.
A Trump campaign spokesperson called The New York Times report featuring two women who accused Trump of groping them “fiction.”
“This entire article is fiction, and for the New York Times to launch a completely false, coordinated character assassination against Mr. Trump on a topic like this is dangerous,” said Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller.
Miller added, “for this to only become public decades later in the final month of a campaign for president should say it all.”
A Trump attorney demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the Times in an open letter. Sources tell CNN Trump is drafting a lawsuit against the Times as well as the Palm Beach Post, which also reported on a women who alleged Trump groped her 13 years ago.
Separately on Wednesday, People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff said Trump physically attacked her in December 2005 at Mar-A-Lago when she was writing a profile on Trump’s one-year wedding anniversary to his wife, Melania. Stoynoff said she regretted not speaking out at the time, but was compelled to come forward after a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced wherein Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals.
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to CNN for comment on Stoynoff’s story, but told People, “This never happened. There is no merit or veracity to this fabricated story.”