In response to Donald Trump’s characteristically appalling remark that author and Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s rape accusation against him holds no water because she is “not my type,” Carroll told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday, “I love that, I am so glad I am not his type. I’m so glad.” She added, “This was 20 years ago, and I probably was, at that moment, in that five minutes, the most attractive woman in Bergdorf’s in that one bit of time.”
In her New York Magazine cover story, Carroll predicted that coming forward with allegations that Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-’90s in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room would cause her to be “dismissed” and “dragged through the mud.” Immediately, her prediction began to materialize around her. After initially denying Carroll’s rape allegation on Friday, the president conducted an interview with The Hill about Carroll’s account, which was corroborated by two friends she talked to about the alleged assault at the time. The president told The Hill, “I say it with great respect. Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, okay?”
More than 20 women have accused the president of sexual misconduct or assault. He has previously employed the “not my type” line to shield himself against accusations by Jessica Leeds, who said in October 2016 that the president groped her on a flight in the ’80s. Trump said of Leeds at a rally in North Carolina later that month, “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. That would not be my first choice.”
Carroll told Cooper in Monday’s interview that she’s not surprised the president has denied her accusations. “He denies, he turns it around, he threatens, and he attacks,” she said.
