The Trump Campaign Claims An Alleged Assault Couldn’t Have Happened Due To Airline Armrests In The 1980s
The aviation defense has a couple of holes in it.
Donald Trump's spokesperson Katrina Pierson defended the presidential candidate against a new sexual assault allegation on Wednesday by claiming he couldn't have groped a woman on a flight because "first-class seats have fixed armrests."
Pierson was addressing a New York Times report in which two new women accused Trump of forcing himself on them.
One of the women, Jessica Leeds, said she encountered Trump in the 1980s on a flight to New York. Leeds told the Times she was bumped up to first class and seated next to the real estate mogul. She said that about 45 minutes into the flight, Trump lifted the armrest between them and grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt.
“He was like an octopus,” Leeds told the newspaper. “His hands were everywhere.”
CNN
But the armrest defense was taken up by some Trump supporters, who called Leeds a "fake" victim.
Reddit sleuths and some conservative websites also repeated the claim that first-class armrests don't move.
The claim was echoed by Brit Hume on Fox News, who said the armrests "in those airplanes don't mysteriously disappear."