Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper at the second presidential debate on Oct. 9 that he had never touched women without their consent. The comment came after The Washington Post published a video of Trump bragging to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in 2005 that he could kiss and grope women without their permission because he was a celebrity.
“Have you ever done those things?” Cooper asked at the debate. “I will tell you: No, I have not,” Trump responded.
Since then, a series of women have come forward to accuse Trump of inappropriately touching or kissing them without their permission. Trump has denied the allegations. In a Saturday morning tweet, he called them “100% fabricated and made-up charges, pushed strongly by the media and the Clinton Campaign,” warning that they “may poison the minds of the American Voter.”
Here is a round-up of all the accusations from the women, as well as the Trump campaign’s responses.
Kristin Anderson
Kristin Anderson told The Washington Post that Trump put his hand up her skirt, touching her vagina through her underwear, during a brief encounter in a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s.
Now a photographer, Anderson had been an up-and-coming model who was earning a living as a makeup artist and restaurant hostess. She said she was engrossed in conversation with acquaintances while seated on a red velvet couch when she felt the hand of a stranger slide up her skirt. She said she shoved the hand away and fled but got a good look at Trump, who was a well-known celebrity at the time. Two friends told The Post that Anderson had told them about the incident in the years since it occurred, including one who said she was told days later.
“I’ve always kept quiet. And why should I keep quiet?” Anderson told The Post.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks called Anderson’s account a “phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity.” At a Friday rally, Trump appeared to refer to Anderson’s account: “One came out recently where I was sitting alone in some club. I really don’t sit alone that much. Honestly, folks, I don’t think I sit alone.” Anderson never told The Post that Trump was alone.
Rachel Crooks
Rachel Crooks was a 22-year-old receptionist working for a real estate company with offices in the Trump Tower that did business with the Trump Organization when she told the New York Times that Trump kissed her on the mouth without permission.
She said she encountered the mogul outside an elevator in 2005. After shaking hands with Trump, she told the Times that he began kissing her cheeks and then kissed her on the mouth. Disturbed, Crooks told several friends about the encounter shortly after it happened. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,” she told the Times.
“None of this ever took place,” Trump told the Times.
Jill Harth
In a lawsuit described by the Boston Globe in April, Jill Harth alleged that Trump repeatedly harassed her over several years starting in 1992, when she and her boyfriend operated a Florida company that ran a beauty contest and other shows that Trump wanted to be held at his Atlantic City casino.
In one 1992 incident, Harth alleged that Trump put his hand up her skirt to her crotch under a table while dining with her and her boyfriend. In 1993, she alleged that while giving her a tour of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, he pushed her against a wall of the room being used as daughter Ivanka’s bedroom and began kissing her.
“I was admiring the decoration, and next thing I know he’s pushing me against a wall and has his hands all over me,” Harth told the New York Times in a recent interview.
Harth and her boyfriend’s business relationship ended in a dispute that caused them to file a lawsuit against Trump; according to the Globe, Harth filed another suit against Trump on her own.
The litigation was settled in 1997, and Harth later dated Trump for several months in 1998. She also sent an email to the Trump campaign last year declaring herself “definitely Team Trump” and met with Trump at a campaign event in January. She told the Times she was trying to get work.
Trump has denied Harth’s allegations repeatedly over the years, Hicks, the campaign spokeswoman, told the Times recently that “Mr. Trump denies each and every statement made by Ms. Harth.”
Cathy Heller
Around 1997, Cathy Heller told the Guardian that she was attending a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago when she was introduced to Trump, who she said grabbed her and moved to kiss her on the mouth. She said she leaned back to avoid him, but Trump exclaimed, “Oh come one!” and then held her firmly while he kissed her on the side of her mouth for a uncomfortably long moment.
A friend told the Guardian that Heller shared the story in 2015. Heller said she has met Clinton and donated to her campaign but came forward after Trump and his supporters insisted that the “Access Hollywood” tape represented only lewd talk. “It’s action,” Heller said.
Trump has denied all such claims.
Jessica Leeds
Jessica Leeds told the New York Times that she was seated next to Trump in the first-class cabin of an airplane in the early 1980s when he lifted the armrest between them and began groping her breasts and trying to put his hand up her skirt. “He was like an octopus,” she told the Times. “His hands were everywhere.” Leeds, who was 38 at the time, had never met Trump before.
Trump has denied the allegation and suggested that Leeds was not attractive enough to draw his attention. ” ‘I was sitting with him on an airplane, and he went after me on the plane,’ ” Trump said at a rally in North Carolina on Friday, mockingly impersonating the woman. “Yeah, I’m gonna go after – believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.”
Temple Taggart McDowell
Temple Taggart McDowell told NBC News that she met Trump in 1997, when she was 21 and participating in the Miss USA beauty pageant as Miss Utah. Trump owned the pageant at the time. She said Trump kissed her on the lips without permission when she met him at a rehearsal for the event. She said he kissed her again when she met with him at Trump Tower to discuss modeling contracts. McDowell said the kiss discomfited a pageant official who was also present.
“I don’t even know who she is,” Trump told NBC News in response. “She claims this took place in a public area. I never kissed her. I emphatically deny this ridiculous claim.”
Mindy McGillivray
Mindy McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post that Trump groped her buttocks when she attended an event at Mar-a-Lago in 2003. Then 23, McGillivray said the incident occurred as she stood with a photographer friend who was working at the event, a concert by Ray Charles. She said Trump gave her a “pretty good nudge – more of a grab” at the event as she stood in a group of people. The photographer, Ken Davidoff, confirmed to the Palm Beach Post that McGillivray immediately told him that Trump had grabbed her. Trump’s campaign has denied the account.
Cassandra Searles
A contestant in the 2013 Miss USA contest representing Washington, Cassandra Searles has alleged on Facebook that Trump “continually grabbed” her buttocks and invited her to his hotel room during the contest and was generally demeaning to her and her fellow pageant participants. Trump has denied the allegations.
Natasha Stoynoff
In an article posted to the website of People magazine, Natasha Stoynoff wrote that she was a reporter for the magazine assigned to the Trump beat when she visited Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, in December 2005 to write a story about his first anniversary with wife Melania. She wrote that while Melania was upstairs changing, Trump pushed her against a wall and kissed her, “forcing his tongue down my throat.”
Stoynoff said the encounter was interrupted by Trump’s butler. Afterward, she said she told a colleague at People, who encouraged her to disclose the incident to her editor, but she said she didn’t because she feared retaliation. “Like many women, I was ashamed and blamed myself for his transgression,” she wrote.
Trump has denied this allegation, telling a crowd at a rally Friday, “When you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said, ‘I don’t think so.'” He also tweeted, “Why didn’t the writer of the twelve year old article in People Magazine mention the ‘incident’ in her story. Because it did not happen!”
An attorney for Melania Trump also demanded that People retract the story, indicating that Melania Trump never ran into Stoynoff on the street after the incident, as the journalist recounted in her piece.
Summer Zervos
A former contestant on the television show “The Apprentice,” Zervos held a news conference alongside famed women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred on Friday to accuse Trump of aggressively kissing and groping her breasts during a 2007 meeting that took place when she sought a job at the Trump Organization.
Zervos, who now owns a California restaurant, said the incident occurred in Trump’s bungalow suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she had gone to discuss employment with Trump over dinner. She said he grew cold after she rejected his advances. Later, she was offered a job but at half the salary they had been discussing.
Zervos said she told several friends and family members about the incident at the time and said she emailed Trump in April 2016, in what she said was an attempt to encourage him to apologize for his behavior. “I have been incredibly hurt by our previous interaction,” she said she wrote.
In a statement, Trump said he “vaguely” remembered Zervos from the reality television show but denied he ever met her at a hotel or “greeted her inappropriately.”
His campaign also released a statement from John Barry, who identified himself as Zervos’ first cousin, who said Zervos had always spoken about Trump in “glowing” terms and suggested her accusations might be tied to Trump’s refusal to visit her restaurant during the primary. The campaign also distributed what it said was an email Zervos wrote to Trump’s assistant on April 16 in which she wrote that she was the only former show contestant who owned a business where people could come to “express their admiration” for Trump and said she would “greatly appreciate reconnecting” with him.
