Jessica Leeds, who has accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her on an airplane, said she was baffled by the former president’s “bizarre” claim that he would not have “chosen” her to be his victim.
At a press conference on Friday, the former president, who has already been found liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll, denied ever assaulting Leeds, claiming that he wasn’t attractive enough.
“She would not have been the chosen one,” Trump told reporters.
Leeds, who held her own press conference on Monday in front of Trump Tower, said she “laughed out loud” when she heard Trump’s remarks, adding that his word choice was “really bizarre.” She also called the Republican nominee a “sexual predator” and warned of his danger to women.
“He assaulted me 50 years ago and he continues to attack me today,” Leeds said. “It’s a little spooky and a little difficult to process. He does seem to be kind of obsessed. But here I am.”
Leeds first came forward with her accusation against Trump in 2016, one of the first women to do so during his first presidential campaign. According to Leeds, she was sitting beside Trump on a plane in 1979 when he reached over and began groping her.
“He was like an octopus. His hands were everywhere,” she told The New York Times in 2016.
The 82-year-old gave further detail when she testified in Trump’s sexual abuse and defamation trial brought by Carroll last spring. “He was grabbing my breasts. It’s like he had 40 zillion hands, and it was a tussling match between the two of us,” Leeds testified. The jury found Trump liable for defamation.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told CNN that Leed’s “fable” was “only meant to interfere in the election,” once again denying that Trump ever assaulted Leeds.
Leeds is still deciding whether to pursue legal action against Trump, she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday. She added that she wanted to remind voters of Trump’s “disrespect for women” ahead of November’s presidential election.
“I was not the first, of course I was not the last. But there have been enough so that he doesn’t remember,” Leeds told Cooper.
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