Hillary Clinton on Trump: ‘Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger’
LAS VEGAS — Donald Trump says he isn’t sorry about the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him because none of them are true.
“I didn’t even apologize to my wife, who’s sitting right here, because I didn’t do anything,” Trump said during Wednesday’s presidential debate in Las Vegas. “I didn’t know any of these — I didn’t see these women.”
Since the candidates’ last debate — when Trump called the 2005 recording of him bragging about kissing and touching women without their consent “locker-room talk” and said he never actually groped anyone — seven women have come forward alleging they were inappropriately touched by the Republican nominee.
Chris Wallace, the debate’s moderator, asked the real estate mogul why the women accusing him would make up their stories.
Related: The women who have accused Donald Trump
Trump said he believes their allegations are a coordinated effort by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to take the spotlight off of the former secretary of state’s use of a private email server.
“I think they want either fame or her campaign did it, and I think it’s her campaign,” he said. “And frankly, those stories have been largely debunked … all fictionalized — probably or possibly started by her and her very sleazy campaign.”
At a rally in Greensboro, N.C., last week, Trump suggested that he could not have sexually assaulted Jessica Leeds, who says he groped her on a flight in the late 1970s, because she wasn’t attractive enough for him to do so.
“Believe me. She would not be my first choice. That I can tell you,” he said. “That would not be my first choice.”
Clinton seized on Trump’s response.
“Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,” Clinton said. “He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That’s who Donald is.”