As Donald Trump and how is eroticism different from euphoriahis campaign staff continue to deal with the fallout from the publication of a 2005 tape of Trump making vulgar comments about the treatment of women, two more women have stepped forward accusing Trump of behavior similar to the actions he bragged about.
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On Wednesday night, the New York Timespublished a story in which two women detailed incidents, decades apart, in which they say they were victims of Trump's unwanted sexual advances. Trump has denied their stories.
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Jessica Leeds, a businesswoman at the time, says that in the 1980s she was seated next to Trump on a flight to New York during which he groped her breast and tried to put his hand up her skirt.
Leeds told the Times, “He was like an octopus. His hands were everywhere.”
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Leeds said that two years after the alleged assault on the flight, she ran into Trump at a charity event during which she said Trump, apparently recalling the incident, made a crude remark to her.
She added that she didn't report the incident because she had been the subject of such unwanted advances in the past and the culture did not favor women coming forward. “We accepted it for years," she told the Times. "We were taught it was our fault.”
The other alleged incident occurred in 2005. Rachel Crooks was a receptionist for a real estate company based in Trump Tower in New York City at the time. The Timeswrites:
Aware that her company did business with Mr. Trump, she turned and introduced herself. They shook hands, but Mr. Trump would not let go, she said. Instead, he began kissing her cheeks. Then, she said, he “kissed me directly on the mouth.”
It didn’t feel like an accident, she said. It felt like a violation.
Trump vehemently denied these new charges to the Times, telling the reporter, “None of this ever took place ... You are a disgusting human being.” He also threatened to sue the paper.
His campaign staff issued a statement calling the accusations "fiction."
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The Clinton campaign also issued a statement calling the allegations "disturbing."
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During the second presidential debate on Sunday night, Trump denied that he had ever performed the behavior he talked about in the 2005 tape, on which he's heard saying, “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait ... And when you’re a star, they let you do it... You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Under questioning from co-moderator Anderson Cooper, during which he asked if Trump had committed the assaults he bragged about, Trump said "No, I have not." The women who spoke to the New York Timessaid his denial on Sunday night was the reason they came forward.
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These accusations are just the latest in a line of accusations against Trump.
Along with the Times story, three other stories were published accusing Trump of misconduct.
The Palm Beach Postposted a story in which a woman accused Trump of groping her at a concert at Mar-A-Lago 13 years ago. In People, reporter Natasha Stoynoff claimed that Trump forcibly kissed her at Mar-a-Largo in 2005 when she was there to interview him and a pregnant Melania.
"We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us," she wrote. "I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat."
He later bragged, according to Stoynoff, "You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?”
Also, Seattle's NBC 5 reported an accusation by a woman who, as Miss Washington in the Miss USA pageant, accused Trump of groping her in 2013 (the story was first reported by Yahoo in June).
In a May 2016 story, also published by the Times, Temple Taggart, who was Miss Utah USA in 1997, told of an encounter with Trump while she was a contestant:
He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, “Oh my God, gross.” He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like “Wow, that’s inappropriate.”
That Timesstory also included the story of Jill Harth who, in 1997, filed a lawsuit against Trump accusing him of attempted rape in January 1993. Harth eventually withdrew her lawsuit but has stood by her accusation, including in an interview with The Guardianin July 2016.
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On Wednesday morning, Buzzfeed Newsreported that several Miss Teen USA contestants said that Trump had walked in on them, many naked and some as young as 15 years old, while they were changing.
“No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it…" he said in a 2005 appearance on Howard Stern's radio show. "You know, they’re standing there with no clothes ... And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”