President Donald Trump denied a recent claim that he raped writer E. Jean Carroll 23 years ago, insisting that she’s not his “type.”
Carroll is the 22nd woman to publicly accuse the president of sexual assault. Her allegations came to light Friday in New York Magazine, in an excerpt from an forthcoming book. Since then, there has been criticism over the lack of public conversation about the rape claim, with some victims advocates pointing to the normalization of sexual misconduct.
Carroll, 75, said in the mid-1990s, Trump threw her up against a wall at a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan so violently that “I hit my head really hard: boom.” Carroll said she tried to fight back, but was overpowered.
“I’ll say it with great respect,” Trump said in an interview with The Hill, that Carroll was “totally lying,” and emphatically insisted he didn’t know anything about her. “Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, O.K.?”
Trump used a similar defense when smacking down another sexual misconduct claim in 2016. After Jessica Leeds said Trump groped her on a plane in the 1980s, Trump told crowds at a campaign rally that Leeds “would not be my first choice.”
He also denied the most recent claims on Saturday, telling media, “People have to be careful, because they’re playing with very dangerous territory.”
In response to Trump’s comments, Carroll told Anderson Cooper in an interview Monday night: “I love that. I am so glad I’m not his type. I’m so glad.” Carroll also said on CNN that the president “just went at it” during the alleged attack, pulling down her tights. “It was a fight,” she said. Carroll said she told two friends, but didn’t report the incident for fear of retribution.
When discussing Trump’s denial of a myriad of sexual assault allegations, Carroll said, “He denies, he turns it around, he threatens and he attacks.”
Talk show host Stephen Colbert took aim at the new rape allegation, and the lack of publicity, during his show’s opening monologue Monday night, calling the claims “specific,” “credible,” and “terrible.”
“Here’s something that you didn’t see discussed on TV a lot this weekend,” said Colbert. “The president of the United States was accused of sexual assault … again. Trump is really repeating his 2016 strategy.”
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, also known as RAINN, told Metro that since Carroll’s account was published, the National Sexual Assault Hotline has seen a 53 percent increase in calls compared to the prior week.
The influx is not uncommon for the organization. Its president, Scott Berkowitz, said, “We generally do see a spike when some story about sexual assault is in the news, but this is higher than we normally see. The biggest we ever saw was the day after the Kavanaugh hearing (338%). It was not as big as that, but bigger than around the Cosby verdict (6%) and around the Access Hollywood tape (15%).”
