She’s not my type: Trump dismisses rape allegation as lie

Donald Trump says a woman accusing him of rape in a changing room is “totally lying”.

E Jean Carroll, a prominent magazine agony aunt, left, claimed that the president raped her at Bergdorf Goodman in late 1995 or early 1996. Mr Trump says she is lying. Pictures: AP

President Trump has denied an allegation that he raped a woman in the changing room of an upmarket Manhattan department store, saying: “She’s not my type.”

E Jean Carroll, a prominent magazine agony aunt, claimed that the president pushed her against a wall and briefly penetrated her at Bergdorf Goodman in late 1995 or early 1996 after they had joked about her trying on see-through lingerie that he was interested in buying as a gift for another woman.

Mr Trump said that Ms Carroll, 75, was “totally lying”. In an interview with The Hill, an American news website, he said: “I’ll say it with great respect. Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?”

Responding to the president’s comments Ms Carroll said in an interview on CNN: “I love that I’m not his type … he also called Miss Universe fat.”

Mr Trump, 73, has faced allegations of sexual misconduct or assault from 15 other women who came forward before the 2016 election. He has denied all of them.

Ms Carroll said that she did not come forward at the time because she had wanted to forget about it, adding: “I thought A, my fault. B, I was stupid. C, I didn’t think of it as rape. I thought of it as a violent incident. I thought of it as a fight.”

She is making her allegation public for the first time in a new book called What Do We Need Men For?, which was previewed on Friday in New York magazine. In the excerpt she wrote: “The moment the dressing room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips.”

Mr Trump insisted that he had never met Ms Carroll. “I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her. She is — it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that.”

New York magazine had published a photograph of Mr Trump and Ms Carroll together at a party in 1987 with her former husband. When a reporter at the White House last weekend reminded the president about the photo, he said: “Standing with my coat on in a line? Give me a break — with my back to the camera? I have no idea who she is.”

Ms Carroll claims that Mr Trump, who was known at the time as a property tycoon, pinned her arm against the wall of the unlocked dressing room and forced himself on her before she broke free of him in a “colossal struggle”.

There were no witnesses and Ms Carroll did not go to the police, saying that instead she confided in two friends, one of whom advised her not to press charges.

The friends both confirmed to The New York Times that she had told them about it at the time.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, responded on Twitter: “Enough is enough with this bullshit! We all get it Media … you hate @realDonaldTrump, but giving every Avenatti like wacko a platform because they will say anything for press kills what little is left of your credibility. Let him do his job. The results speak for themselves!”

Michael Avenatti was the lawyer for the porn star Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had consensual sex with Mr Trump shortly after his third wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron, in 2006.

Mr Trump had rejected a previous sexual assault accusation by saying that he did not find his accuser attractive.

“Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you,” Mr Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in North Carolina in October 2016 after a woman accused him of putting his hand up her skirt while on an aircraft. “You don’t know. That would not be my first choice.”

To laughter in the crowd, he added: “Check out her Facebook, you’ll understand.”

The Times