Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday charged that the women accusing him of sexual misconduct fabricated their stories to damage his campaign after two more women came forward with allegations that he had groped them. The new accusations were made by a contestant on his reality TV show The Apprentice, who cited a 2007 incident, and by a woman who described an incident from the early 1990s.

Earlier Friday, the Washington Post published an interview with a woman who said Trump put his hand up her skirt in a crowded New York nightclub in the early 1990s in an unwanted advance. "He did touch my vagina through my underwear, absolutely," Kristin Anderson said in a video interview on the newspaper's website. "It wasn't a sexual come-on. I don't know why he did it. It was like just to prove that he could do it," she told the newspaper.

With the allegations against Trump dominating the campaign, opinion polls show Trump trailing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll taken Oct. 7-13 and released on Friday showed Trump behind Clinton by 7 percentage points among likely voters in the Nov. 8 election.

'The Apprentice' contestant recounts harrowing experience

At a news conference in Los Angeles on Friday, Summer Zervos alleged that the incident took place after she was eliminated from The Apprentice show and approached Trump for work at one of his golf courses.

"In 2007 I was going to New York for a social obligation. I contacted Trump's office to see if he was available for lunch. I was informed that he could not have lunch, but that he would like to meet me in his office. When I arrived he kissed me on the lips. I was surprised, but felt that perhaps it was just a form of greeting. We sat and spoke. He was extremely complimentary," she alleged.

Accompanied by her lawyer Gloria Allred, Zervos said during the meeting, she requested for a job, to which Trump agreed. "He said that he was impressed with how I handled myself on The Apprentice. He said he was allowed to have me work for him. Trump said he would be coming to Los Angeles soon and he would contact," she told reporters. "I felt as though I was reaching for my brass ring. I was very excited. I felt as though my dream of working for Trump might come true. As I was about to leave, he again kissed me on the lips. This made me feel nervous and embarrassed. This is not what I wanted or expected. He asked me for my phone number. I left hurriedly and called a friend who lived in New York because I was upset by the kiss. I also called my parents to let them know what had happened," she said.

Trump called Zervos when he came to Los Angeles and asked her to meet him at the Beverly Hills Hotel, besides enquiring where she would like to have dinner. "When I arrived, his security guard greeted me at the hotel. He walked with me to greet Trump. I assumed we were going to a restaurant in the hotel. Instead, I was taken to a bungalow," she said. "I was standing in the entryway. To my left was a bedroom and clothes on the bed. I did not see him, but he greeted me with hello in a singsong voice that sounded like hello. I thought the mistake had been made and Trump thought he was speaking to someone he was more familiar with. I walked further into the living room, away from the bedroom, and sat down," she said.

Zervos said Trump emerged 15 minutes later and started kissing her "open-mouthed" while pulling her towards him. "I walked away and I sat down in a chair. He was on the left seat across from me and I made an attempt at conversation. He then asked me to sit next to him. I complied. He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast," she alleged. "I pulled back and walked to another part of the room. He then walked up, grabbed my hand and walked me into the bedroom. He put me in an embrace and I tried to push him away," she alleged.

According to Zervos, during the conversation at the dinner table later the same night, Trump told her that she should not make payments on mortgage of her home and hired her for the golf course at half the salary she was expecting.

"Even though Trump had sexually harassed me, I still wanted to get a job within the Trump organisation. I felt that since I had made it clear to him that I was not interested in having a sexual relationship with him, that if he gave me a job it would be based solely on merit and we would be able to work together," she said.

"During Trump's fight for the Republican nomination, I saw and heard Trump's non-stop on television and in the news. Customers at my restaurant asked about him as they knew I was a contestant on The Apprentice. I always complemented and never said anything about what he had done at the Beverly Hills Hotel," she said.

Zervos said this, however, caused a "great deal of pain" and anguish for her and she felt the need to "confront" Trump and ask him to apologise for his behaviour. "I also thought he might have been embarrassed by his behaviour, and that this would provide him with the opportunity to clear the air. I had no idea about his behaviour with other women at the time," she said.

Trump reacts

Trump, who has been facing a series of charges of sexual assault, has denied the allegations. "I vaguely remember Zervos as one of the many contestants on The Apprentice over the years. To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago," he said. "That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I've conducted my life. In fact, Zervos continued to contact me for help, emailing my office on April 14th of this year asking that I visit her restaurant in California," Trump said.

At his last event of the day on Friday, in Charlotte, Trump suggested that his accusers were fabricating their stories for publicity or to damage his campaign. "It's not hard to find a small handful of people willing to make false smears," he said. Trump said the women may be motivated for financial reasons or political reasons or "the simple reason they want to stop our movement."