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."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
-
One great cookbook: ‘More Than Cake’the week recommends The power of pastry brought to inspired life
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
Constitutional rights are at the center of FBI agents’ lawsuitIn the Spotlight The agents were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest
-
Democrat files to impeach RFK Jr.
Speed Read Rep. Haley Stevens filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
-
$1M ‘Trump Gold Card’ goes live amid travel rule furorSpeed Read The new gold card visa offers an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for $1 million
-
US seizes oil tanker off VenezuelaSpeed Read The seizure was a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
-
Ex-FBI agents sue Patel over protest firingspeed read The former FBI agents were fired for kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest for ‘apolitical tactical reasons’
-
Trump unveils $12B bailout for tariff-hit farmersSpeed Read The president continues to insist that his tariff policy is working
-
Trump’s Comey case dealt new setbackspeed read A federal judge ruled that key evidence could not be used in an effort to reindict former FBI Director James Comey
