“I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump told the Hill newspaper in an interview.
His comments came hours after Carroll voiced frustration that Trump has not faced consequences from a string of previous allegations of misconduct. “With all the women it’s the same: He denies it, he turns it around, he attacks, and he threatens — and then everybody forgets it until the next woman comes along,” Carroll said during another interview on CNN. “I am sick of it. I am sick of it.”
Most of Trump’s accusers spoke out just weeks before the 2016 election, after The Washington Post published a recording of Trump bragging during a 2005 “Access Hollywood” interview that his celebrity gave him permission to grab women by their genitals. Trump has denied the allegations of misconduct and called the women “liars.”
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night, Carroll responded: “I love that I’m not his type. Don’t you love that you’re not his type?”
She noted that Trump had previously criticized the appearance of a former Miss Universe, taking aim at her weight.
“One of the most beautiful women in the solar system, and he called her fat,” Carroll said.
In a statement released Friday night, Trump said that the encounter described by Carroll never happened and that he did not know her. In his statement, Trump asked anyone who had information that Carroll or the magazine was working with the Democratic Party to come forward.
Carroll denied that politics played any role in her decision to speak out. “I’m barely political. I can’t name you the candidates who are running right now,” she told CNN. “I’m not organized . . . I’m just fed up.”
“I can’t believe that he’s in the White House, and it makes me sick,” she said. “What else can I do but just tell my story?”
Carroll, a registered Democrat, told The Post in an interview Friday that she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. She donated $1,000 this cycle to Emily’s List, which supports female candidates who back abortion rights, and $500 in 2012 to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, according to campaign finance records. On Twitter, she has posted several sharp remarks about Trump and has retweeted satirical and critical articles about him.
Carroll alleged that the assault took place more than 20 years ago in a dressing room of an upscale Manhattan department store. She detailed the alleged encounter in a book excerpt published Friday in New York magazine.
In the Post interview, Carroll repeated the allegations, saying that during a chance encounter with the then-real estate developer at Bergdorf Goodman in late 1995 or early 1996, Trump attacked her in a dressing room. She said he knocked her head against a wall, pulled down her tights and briefly penetrated her before she pushed him off and ran out.
In the CNN interview, Carroll said she would be open to working with the New York Police Department in a criminal investigation into the attack. “I would consider it,” she said, adding that her lawyers have advised her that the statute of limitations has expired for bringing such a complaint.
Carroll said she plans to continue speaking out about the alleged assault by Trump.
Beth Reinhard, Felicia Sonmez and Colby Itkowitz contributed to this report.
