Trump spokeswoman says airplane armrests debunk sexual assault accusation


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Donald Trump's surrogates have attempted to deny a torrent of accusations of sexual harassment and assault plaguing the Republican nominee, to varying degrees of success. One of the less impressive attempts came from Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, who denied a story by The New York Times accusing Trump of groping a woman on an airplane because "we're talking about the early 1980s."
"Back then, you had planes, what, a DC-9, a DC-10, and MD-80, 707, and maybe an L-1011?" Pierson told Don Lemon. "First-class seats have fixed armrests … There are fixed seats on first class, so if it happened, it wasn't by Donald Trump."
The entire CNN panel snickered through Pierson's lame defense, with Lemon finally interrupting: "Okay Katrina," he said. "We'll get our aviation expert here to talk about the airplane."
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But before they could return to the question of armrests, the internet had already started to fact-check:
It looks like Pierson memorized all those plane models for naught.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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