After two more women told stories of alleged groping, the Republican nominee claimed the New York Times was part of a Mexican conspiracy to undermine him

Donald Trump disassembled his teleprompter during a North Carolina rally on Friday night, in the same week that he boasted on Twitter Tuesday about having his “shackles off”.

The Republican nominee, who saw further accusations of groping on Friday from two different women, responded by trashing the media. Speaking to a crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina, he seemed to allege that the New York Times was part of a Mexican conspiracy to undermine him.

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“The largest shareholder in the Times is Carlos Slim,” Trump said. “Now, Carlos Slim comes from Mexico. He’s given many millions of dollars to the Clintons and their initiative.” In Trump’s conclusion, “reporters of the New York Times, they’re not journalists, they’re corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clinton”.

The Republican nominee denounced the media in more abstract terms in his rally in Charlotte, insisting that the press was responsible for “rigging the system” as well as the coming election.

The Republican nominee also insisted that he could not have sexually harassed Jessica Leeds, a businesswoman who said Trump groped her on a 1979 flight because Leeds was unattractive. “Believe me – she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.”

The candidate’s campaign also rolled out an eyewitness who claimed that he was sitting across from Leeds and Trump and that nothing ever happened. The witness, Anthony Gilberthorpe, an Englishman who would have been a teenager at the time that he said he was flying first class on the domestic US flight, has also claimed that he procured underage male prostitutes for British MPs and that Margaret Thatcher covered up the scandal.

A campaign aide told the Guardian that Gilberthorpe was “just the beginning” in their effort to fight back against the allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump denied all accusations against him and suggested that women coming forward might be motivated for “financial reasons”. He told the crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina, “these allegations are 100% false. They are made up, they never happened. When you have met tens of thousands people as I have ... it’s not hard to find a small handful of people make false smears for personal fame, maybe financial reasons.”

The controversy over Trump’s sexual misconduct towards women was launched last Friday when a 2005 tape emerged of the Republican nominee discussing kissing and grabbing women by the genitals without their consent. After repeated questioning during Sunday’s presidential debate, Trump eventually said that he had never engaged in such actions. Since then nearly a dozen women have accused Trump of inappropriate, unwanted sexual conduct including groping them, putting his hand up skirts and barging in on dressing rooms.

In addition to commenting on Leeds’ attractiveness, Trump also appeared to attack the appearance of his rival Clinton. Referring to the second presidential debate in St Louis, he said: “I’m standing at my podium and she walks in front of me, she walks in front of me and when she walks in front of me, believe me, I wasn’t impressed.” Later, in Charlotte, he added of his opponent that “she was the most corrupt person to ever seek the presidency of the United States and her specialty has been, as you see over the years, it’s character assassination”.

The Republican nominee eventually reverted to standard lines from his primary campaign after his teleprompter broke down on Friday night at a rally in Charlotte. Trump laid the devices on the stage before returning to old chestnuts, including his attack on the Obama administration’s concern over climate change. “Obama thinks global warming is our biggest threat. I happen to think it’s nuclear warming,” Trump said. He also went to jab at former rival Jeb Bush, using the epithet “low energy” while going on a tirade about primary opponents who signed the RNC pledge to support the eventual nominee but are now not backing Trump.

The day after Trump spoke in ominous tones about global elites and Hillary Clinton meeting “in secret with international banks,” President Barack Obama bashed those comments in a campaign trip to Cleveland. “This is a guy who spent all his time hanging around trying to convince everybody he was a global elite,” Obama said, laughing. “Talking about how great his buildings are, how luxurious and how rich he is and flying around everywhere. All he had time for was celebrities and now suddenly he’s acting like he’s a populist out there. I’m going to fight for working people.” Obama added, “Come on, man.”

On a fundraising swing in Seattle, Clinton expressed disappointment in the tenor of the campaign. “This election is incredibly painful. I take absolutely no satisfaction in what is happening on the other side with my opponent,” Clinton said at a stop at a campaign office in Seattle. “I am not at all happy about that, because it hurts our country, it hurts our democracy, it sends terrible messages to so many people here at home and around the world. Damage is being done that we’re going to have to repair. Divisions are being deepened that we’re going to have to try to heal.”

Clinton has no public events scheduled Saturday as both candidates prepare for the final presidential debate to be held Wednesday in Las Vegas. Trump will speak at an event at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, car dealership before holding a rally in Bangor, Maine.