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Trump meets Clinton accusers

Sunday, October 09, 2016 - 02:52

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump convened a meeting of women who accuse former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct in St. Louis ahead of debate with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

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ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump convened a meeting of women who accuse former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct in St. Louis on Sunday hours before a debate with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. "These four very courageous women have asked to be here," Trump said. Trump had threatened to talk about Bill Clinton's past infidelities during the debate and has stepped up the attacks against the former president since Friday when a 2005 video emerged of Trump making vulgar comments about women. The panel included Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer who says Bill Clinton groped her in an Oval Office hallway in 1993 when she came to him tearfully seeking a paid job, said she had agreed to become a paid national spokeswoman for a group being created by Roger Stone. In a 1998 deposition, Clinton "emphatically" denied Willey's accusation he groped her, describing her as having "been through a lot" in reference to her family's financial woes and her husband's suicide on the day Willey says her encounter with Clinton happened. Clinton has admitted having extra-marital affairs with two other women: Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, and Gennifer Flowers, a singer and actor from his home state of Arkansas, but he and his lawyers have said accusations by other women are false. Trump has faced eroding support from his party over lewd remarks about women. He went into the second presidential debate needing to demonstrate he remains a credible candidate. At the first debate, on Sept. 26, Trump was repeatedly put on the defensive by Clinton. He never let her accusations go unanswered, and as a result he missed opportunities to use his speaking time to draw attention to Clinton's perceived weaknesses. A Reuters-Ipsos poll had Clinton leading by five points on Friday, before the video surfaced. Now, the question is whether Trump's quest for the presidency is all but over.