‘Like an octopus’: Trump accuser rebuts ex-president’s denial that he groped her

Donald Trump sexual abuse accuser Jessica Leeds says she ruefully “laughed out loud” when the former president recently disputed her sworn testimony that he grabbed her, tried to kiss her and ran his hand up her skirt on a plane in the 1970s by insisting “she would not have been the chosen one”.

“He assaulted me 50 years ago and continues to attack me today,” Leeds said alongside her attorneys during a press conference in New York on Monday. “It was like he had 47 arms – like an octopus, but not a sound was spoken.”

Her remarks came after Trump appeared at an appeal hearing on the sexual abuse case brought by E Jean Carroll , which resulted in a jury finding Trump liable of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.

Related: Advisers worry whether ‘happy Trump’ or ‘angry Trump’ will show up to debate

Leeds, 82, came forward in 2016 and later testified in the Carroll trial, which centered on Carroll’s testimony that the Republican nominee in November’s election had assaulted her at a department store in the 1990s. That set the stage for Trump to go into a lengthy rebuttal of both Carroll and Leeds.

With respect to Leeds, Trump said it was a “totally made-up story” that “never happened”, and he insinuated that she supported Democrats.

“And frankly – I know you’re going to say it’s a terrible thing to say – but it couldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen. And she would not have been the chosen one.”

Leeds has accused Trump of groping her in the first-class section of an airplane. She said she fought him off and moved to the back of the plane. At her press conference, she said she later ran into him, prompting him to exclaim, “I remember you,” before calling her a derogatory word.

Trump in turn said: “Think of the impracticality of this. I’m famous – I’m in a plane. People are coming into the plane, and I’m looking at a woman, and I grab her and I start kissing her and making out with her. What are the chances of that happening?”

Leeds’s claim first surfaced soon after Trump debated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton before he won the 2016 presidential election. During that campaign, hot-mic footage from Access Hollywood captured Trump saying in reference to women: “I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet, just kiss, I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they just let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Leeds told the New York Times then that she believed “his behavior is deep-seated in his character”.

“To those who would vote for him, I would wish for them to reflect on this,” Leeds said.

Leeds on Monday said she and her lawyers were considering “a number of options” following Trump’s remarks on Friday, which she described as “bizarre”.

She added that Trump “has no respect for women” and he should not be re-elected president.

“The bottom line is that he does not understand that he is a sexual predator,” she said.

Trump is grappling with a number of other legal cases in addition to Carroll’s as he faces Kamala Harris in the 5 November election for the White House. Those include three pending indictments in connection with efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden as well as his retention of classified documents after his presidency.

Meanwhile, in May, he was convicted of criminally falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to an adult film actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him about a decade before he won the presidency.