How Trump faced a sexual misconduct claims from Apprentice contestant – as it happened

A former contestant on the Apprentice, Summer Zervos, on Friday accused Donald Trump of groping or aggressively kissing her on two separate occasions in 2007, when she met the businessman in private for what she thought were going to be discussions about job opportunities. Often speaking through tears, Zervos read a prepared statement in the Los Angeles offices of her lawyer, Gloria Allred. Earlier today, another woman, Kristin Anderson, told the Washington Post Trump had groped her at a New York nightclub in the early 1990s.

Speaking in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the same time as Zervos, Trump dismissed the allegations of Jessica Leeds, who alleged that Trump assaulted her in the first-class cabin of an airplane in 1979. “The only way they figure they can slow it down is to come up with people that are willing to say, ‘Oh, I was with Donald Trump in 1980! I was sitting with him on an airplane! And he went after me on the plane!’” Trump said dismissively. “Yeah, I’m gonna go after you. Believe me - she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Man. You don’t know - that would not be my first choice.”

Meanwhile, another accuser says that she is fleeing the country because of threats to her life from Trump supporters.

Trump surrogate Ben Carson unleashed on live TV this morning, asking to “turn off” the microphone of a female journalist who questioned if he was accusing the women who say Trump harassed them of being liars, during an appearance MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Carson raised the idea that the female accusers against Donald Trump may not be honest, noting that “I do have common sense, and for instance, if somebody’s sitting next to you in the first class section of the airplane - there are stewardesses, there are other people around, and there’s this gigantic arm rest,” a reference to Jessica Leeds who says Trump groped her in on a plane.

Trump told a radio host in 2004 that actress Lindsay Lohan was likely “great in bed” because she was “probably deeply troubled.” “She’s probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed,” Trump told Howard Stern, according to CNN. “How come the deeply troubled women, you know, deeply, deeply troubled, they’re always the best in bed? For some reason, what I said is true,” Trump continued. “It’s just unbelievable. You don’t want to be with them for long term, but for the short term there’s nothing like it.”