WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that a New York-based advice columnist who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s is not his "type."
"I'll say it with great respect: Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened," Trump told The Hill in an interview at the White House.
Writer E. Jean Carroll has claimed that a friendly encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996 turned violent when the real estate mogul pushed her up against a dressing room wall, unzipped his pants and forced himself on her. Carroll said that, in a "colossal struggle," she pushed him off and ran from the store.
Trump told The Hill that Carroll is "totally lying" about the accusation, which he also denied earlier. "I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her," he said. "She is — it's just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that."
The allegation against Trump is included in Carroll's upcoming book about the "hideous men" the Elle magazine columnist says she has encountered throughout her life.
Carroll told CNN's Anderson Cooper later Monday that she's glad Trump doesn't consider her his type. "I love that," she said. "I'm so glad I am not his type."
Carroll said there were no attendants in the dressing room area at the time of the alleged assault and she did not file a report with the New York Police Department.
"I wanted to forget it," she said. "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."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, more than a dozen women accused Trump of sexual misconduct in earlier years. Trump has denied the allegations and said the women are lying.
The "not my type" remark isn't the first time Trump has disparaged an accuser.
In 2016, after a former magazine writer accused Trump of assaulting her in 2005, he responded: "She lies! Look at her, I don't think so."
And when another woman claimed Trump groped her on an airplane in the early 1980s, he said, "Believe me — she would not be my first choice."
