Suing accusers, Trump declares in policy speech

Clinton rejects claims of ties to sexual-assault allegations

Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine arrive for an event Saturday at a high school in Pittsburgh. In an interview, Kaine expressed optimism that if he and Clinton win the election, they will be able to work with Republicans.
Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine arrive for an event Saturday at a high school in Pittsburgh. In an interview, Kaine expressed optimism that if he and Clinton win the election, they will be able to work with Republicans.

GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Donald Trump vowed Saturday to sue every woman who has accused him of sexual assault or other lewd behavior. He called them "liars" whose allegations he blamed Democrats for orchestrating.


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Interpretive park ranger Caitlin Kostic gives Donald Trump a tour Saturday at Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pa. In a speech at Gettysburg, Trump laid out his plan for his first 100 days as president, but he also threatened to sue every woman who had accused him of inappropriate behavior. “I look so forward to doing that,” he said.

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Singer Miley Cyrus has tea Saturday with student Mouse Abusaif in his dormitory room at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., while campaigning for Hillary Clinton. Cyrus went door to door at the dormitory as hundreds of students gathered outside.

Trump's blunt threat of legal action eclipsed his planned focus on serious-minded policy during a speech in Gettysburg. His campaign had billed the speech as a chance for Trump to lay out a to-do list for his first 100 days as president.

"All of these liars will be sued once the election is over," Trump said. He added later: "I look so forward to doing that."

Nearly a dozen women have publicly accused Trump of unwanted advances or sexual assault in the weeks since a 2005 recording emerged in which the former reality TV star boasted of kissing women and groping their genitals without their consent. The latest came Saturday, when an adult-film actress said the businessman kissed her and two other women on the lips "without asking for permission" when they met him after a golf tournament in 2006.

[INTERACTIVE: Video highlights from presidential, vice presidential debates]

Trump has denied all the allegations, while insisting some of the women weren't attractive enough for him to want to pursue.

"Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign," he said. Without offering evidence, he surmised that rival Hillary Clinton or the Democratic National Committee had put the women up to it.

Speaking to reporters aboard her campaign plane, Clinton said, "I saw where our opponent Donald Trump went to Gettysburg, one of the most extraordinary places in American history, and basically said if he's president he'll spend his time suing women who have made charges against him based on his behavior." She also said the suggestion that Democrats or her campaign were encouraging women to level accusations against Trump "inaccurate."

Trump's broadside against the women came at the start of an otherwise substantive speech that sought to weave the many policy ideas he has put forward into a single, cohesive agenda that he said he would pursue aggressively during his first three months in office.

The Republican nominee vowed to lift restrictions on domestic energy production, label China as a currency manipulator and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, familiar themes to supporters who have flocked to his rallies this year.

Trump also reiterated his promise to build a border wall with Mexico and have Mexico pay for it, though he hedged his wording a bit, saying, "The country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such a wall."

"This is my pledge to you, and if we follow these steps, we will once again have a government of, by and for the people," Trump said, invoking a phrase from President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Trump told the crowd of about 500 locals who are active in the Republican Party that he didn't have to run for president, but he did so because the country is in trouble and he can fix things because he's an outsider who knows how the "very broken system" works.

Trump, giving examples of the system being "totally rigged and broken," listed Clinton being allowed to run for president, even though, he said, she broke "so many laws on so many different occasions," rampant voter fraud that he implied could cost him the election, and the media being "dishonest."

Clinton said late Saturday in Philadelphia that Trump's suggestion that he would not concede if he lost the election is a "direct threat to our democracy."

Though mostly a recap of policies he's proposed before, Trump's speech included a few new elements, such as a freeze on hiring new federal workers and a two-year mandatory minimum sentence for people who re-enter the U.S. illegally after being deported a first time. He also vowed to block a merger between AT&T and media conglomerate Time Warner.

Translating his proposals into digestible bullet points, he offered to-the-point titles for the legislative vehicles he'd need Congress to approve to accomplish his goals, such as the "End Illegal Immigration Act" and the "Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act."

Throughout the GOP primary, Trump was criticized for shying away from detailed policy proposals. But his speech, which aides said would form the core of his closing argument to voters, underscored how the nominee has gradually compiled a broad -- if sometimes vague -- policy portfolio that straddles conservative, isolationist and populist orthodoxies.

On Friday night, a handful of Trump campaign aides held a conference call with reporters to preview Trump's speech.

When asked why Trump selected Gettysburg as the setting for his address, an aide said that "Abraham Lincoln is going to be an important figure in terms of Mr. Trump's vision for the Republican Party." But also, the aide said, the site evoked themes of unity, military veterans and black voters.

"Gettysburg was the moment where the war turned," the aide said. "It was a symbol of sacrifice. It's obviously a very fitting location."

Trump didn't say what kind of lawsuits he planned to file against the women, but any libel litigation could be complicated by the fact that Trump, in the 2005 recording, bragged about the same kind of conduct the women accuse him of perpetrating. Trump recently vowed to sue The New York Times for libel, but has not yet followed through on the threat.

With the debates over, Trump and Clinton have few apparent opportunities to alter the course of the race substantially -- a reality that benefits Clinton more than Trump. The Republican is trailing his opponent in most of the battleground states while Clinton's campaign is looking at potential upset victories in traditionally safe GOP territory, with Arizona at the top of the list.

An increasingly confident Clinton on Saturday made what's become her closing pitch in Pittsburgh, stressing unity and asking her backers to carry her message to any Trump supporters they meet.

"I understand that they need a president who cares about them, will listen to them -- and I want to be their president," she said, adding that "anger is not a plan," in a nod to the frustrations of many who have swung behind Trump.

As Election Day nears, Clinton also is focusing on getting Democrats elected to Congress. She attacked Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Pat Toomey, saying he has refused to "stand up" to Trump as she touted his Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty.

Meanwhile, Clinton got a campaign boost from singer and pop icon Katy Perry, who was pushing early voting in Las Vegas. The singer surprised students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas when she knocked on the doors of their dorm rooms.

Kaine Outlines plans

In a Saturday interview, Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, shed light on his plans should he and Clinton win the election.

Kaine sounded a hopeful note that a Democratic White House could work with Republicans to bridge deep divides laid bare by this bitter presidential campaign.

He told The Associated Press that he and Clinton already have spoken about how to heal the nation if they should win. He said tackling economic anxieties, finding common policy ground with the GOP and perhaps appointing Republicans to the administration would be elements of unity, though he added that he and Clinton did not discuss Cabinet positions.

"We have not run this campaign as a campaign against the GOP with the big broad brush -- we've run it against Donald Trump," Kaine said. He predicted: "We're going to get a lot of Republican votes, and that will also be part of, right out of the gate, the way to bring folks back together."

Clinton's campaign has been preparing for the possibility that Trump won't concede the election if he loses, based on his assertions that the contest is rigged. Kaine said he hasn't talked with Clinton about that scenario.

A self-described underdog, Kaine said he only recently began acknowledging the real possibility of victory. He hired Wayne Turnage, a former chief of staff, as his transition director and is considering issues he'd pursue as vice president.

"It's probably only been in the last couple of weeks that I've started to think about, OK, the prospect of winning is such that we better start doing some thinking about practicalities," Kaine said.

As vice president, Kaine said he would hope to be central in forging relationships among the administration and mayors and governors. Kaine served as the mayor of Richmond and governor of Virginia before winning his Senate seat in 2012. He also wants to help shape U.S. policy in Latin and South America, a chance to draw on his fluency in Spanish and experience as a missionary in Honduras.

The two campaign together infrequently, but communicate by text message, email and phone. Sometimes they talk every few days, but it could be as infrequent as once a week, Kaine said.

The two campaigned Saturday in Pennsylvania, marking their first event together since Labor Day.

Information for this article was contributed by Josh Lederman, Jill Colvin, Catherine Lucey, Kathleen Ronayne, Alan Suderman and staff members of The Associated Press; by Jenna Johnson and Jose A. DelReal of The Washington Post; and by Ashley Parker of The New York Times.

A Section on 10/23/2016

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