President Trump responded to the firestorm surrounding E. Jean Carroll’s allegation that he raped her in the 1990s by telling reporters he would not have assaulted her because “she’s not my type.” An excerpt from the noted advice columnist’s upcoming book accuses Trump of forcibly kissing, then raping her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York. Over the weekend, Trump said he did not know and had never met Carroll, despite a photo which accompanied the excerpt showing the two of them together at a party in the 1980s. At least 22 women have accused Trump of assault or sexual misconduct.
In related news, The New York Times’s executive editor Dean Baquet admitted that the Times was “overly cautious” in its coverage of Carroll’s allegations, after readers took the paper to task for downplaying the story. The Times initially reported the story in its online Books section Friday and did not promote it on its homepage until late on Saturday or run a print story until Sunday.