Jessica Leeds, who has long claimed Donald Trump groped her on an airplane in the 1970s addressed the media Monday to respond to his latest public remarks about her — that “she would not have been the chosen one” for such an assault.
“He assaulted me 50 years ago, and he continues to attack me today,” Leeds told reporters outside Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. “I’m here to say we just cannot allow this person back into the White House.”
Leeds, 81, later said she hadn’t ruled out bringing a defamation lawsuit.
“We’re considering a number of options because of his latest remarks, but no decision has been made.”
Leeds, a former stockbroker, testified as a witness for E. Jean Carroll in the writer’s victorious May 2023 case against Trump, telling a jury he had grabbed her breasts and shot his hand up her skirt after she was bumped up to a seat beside him in first class. The allegations were thrust back into the spotlight on Friday as Trump sought to overturn a jury’s findings that he sexually abused and defamed Carroll, in part based on the incident jurors heard about from Leeds.
Denying the assault last week, the Republican presidential nominee said Leeds wouldn’t have been his “chosen one,” a remark harkening back to his denial of raping Carroll years ago when he said she wasn’t his “type.”
“I must admit, I did laugh. It’s a little spooky and a little bit difficult to process. He does seem to be kind of obsessed, but here I am,” Leeds told reporters.
Leeds, 81, is among more than two dozen women who have accused Trump of instances of sexual misconduct ranging in severity. She went public shortly after the 2016 release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump bragged about not needing consent to grab women’s genitals.
“There was no conversation. It was like out of the blue,” Leeds described the assault at the trial. “It’s like he had 40 zillion hands, and it was a tussling match between the two of us.”
The Daily News reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
