President Trump on Monday again denied allegations of sexual assault made against him before he took office, calling the claims “fake news” and “made-up stuff.”
“All I can say is it’s totally fake news — just fake. It’s fake, it’s made-up stuff. And it’s disgraceful what happens,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu White House Rose Garden press conference.
{mosads}“That happens in the world of politics,” he added.
The president’s remarks come after reports surfaced Sunday that lawyers for Summer Zervos, who accused Trump of groping her in 2007, issued a subpoena to his campaign for any records about “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.”
Lawyers for Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” reportedly filed the subpoena in March.
During the presidential election, 11 women accused Trump of sexual harassment after the controversial “Access Hollywood” tape from 2005 was leaked in the news. The audio of the tape caught Trump bragging about groping and kissing women without waiting for permission.
His comments also follow a flood of reports that film producer Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted over two dozen women over a couple decades, with well-known actresses like Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rose McGowan coming forward about the movie mogul’s predatory behavior.
Hillary Clinton, when asked about the Weinstein scandal, took a shot at Trump, saying there is a lot of work to be done in the sexual assault arena if a man with several sexual assault claims against him can win the White House.
“Look, we just elected someone who admitted sexual assault to the presidency. So there’s a lot of other issues that are swirling around these kinds of behaviors that need to be addressed,” Clinton told the U.K.’s Channel 4 News in an interview on Saturday.
“The women coming forward is the only way that that story will be told,” she said.