Writer claims Trump forced himself on her in New York department store in 1990s

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump has said a New York-based advice columnist who accused him of sexually assaulting her in a 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,” the US president told the political newspaper the Hill in an interview at the White House on Monday.

The writer E Jean Carroll alleged that a friendly encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996 turned violent when he pushed her up against a dressing room wall, unzipped his pants and forced himself on her. Carroll said she pushed him off in a “colossal struggle” and ran from the store.

Trump told the Hill that Carroll was “totally lying” about the accusation, which he had 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.”

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The allegation against Trump is included in Carroll’s upcoming book about the “hideous men” whom the Elle magazine columnist says she has encountered throughout her life.

Carroll told CNN’s Anderson Cooper later on Monday she was glad Trump didn’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 a plane in the early 1980s, he said: “Believe me – she would not be my first choice.”