A fiery Donald Trump responded to the wave of recent allegations leveled against him in the media by blaming a political and media establishment that views him as an “existential threat like they haven’t seen before.”
Speaking Thursday at a West Palm Beach rally in Florida, the Republican presidential nominee referenced the spate of stories published over the last 24 hours of women claiming he made inappropriate advances at them and said all of them are “totally and absolutely false.”
“There is nothing the political establishment will not do,” Trump said. “No lie that they won’t tell to hold their prestige and power at your expense. And that’s what’s been happening.”
Added Trump: “Our campaign represents a true existential threat like they haven’t seen before. This is not simply another four-year election. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we, the people, reclaim control over our government.”
Within hours on Wednesday, The New York Times, the Palm Beach Post and People magazine all published unique stories involving allegations that Trump was inappropriate with women in the past.
Speaking Thursday, Trump called it a “concerted, coordinated, and vicious attack.”
“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” Trump said. “And the Clintons know it, and they know it very well. These claims are all fabricated. They’re pure fiction and they’re outright lies. These events never, ever happened.”
At one point during the rally, the crowd chanted “lock her up” when Trump spoke of Hillary Clinton. Trump replied: “Honestly, she should be locked up. She should be.”
At another point, Trump said: “The Clintons are criminals, remember that, they’re criminals.”
Trump, who has threatened to sue the New York Times over their story about two women who say the Republican touched them inappropriately, said “the claims are preposterous and ludicrous and defy truth, common sense and logic.”
“We already have substantial evidence to dispute these lies and it will be made public in an appropriate way and at an appropriate time very soon,” Trump said.
During the rally, Trump said he expected — when he decided to run for president — that his enemies would “throw every lie at me and my family and my loved ones” and “they would stop at nothing to try to stop me.”
But, he said: “I never knew it would be this vile that it would be this bad, that it would be this vicious.”
“Nevertheless,” Trump said, “I take all of these slings and arrows gladly for you. I take them for our movement so that we could have our country back.”
