Trump rejects sexual assault claims, calls accusers 'sick'

Speaking at a campaign event on Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump said the women may be motivated by financial or political reasons or "the simple reason they want to stop our movement."
 
"As you have seen, I am a victim of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country," he said. "They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country."
 
"It's not hard to find a small handful of people willing to make false smears," the candidate said.
 
Two more women have come forward since Friday with allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump.
 
The Republican nominee denied the accusations, even suggesting that he never would have found the two women attractive.
 
"I have no idea who these women are," he told the crowd on Friday. "I have no idea. I have no idea.”
 
The latest allegations came just one week after a leaked video from 2005 shows Trump bragging about groping women and making unwanted advances.
 
Trump's campaign has been scrambling to recover from the release of the video.
 
A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday showed Trump trailing his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by seven percentage points.
 
While the New York real estate magnate has said the comments he made in the video was just talk and he had never behaved in that way, more than a dozen women have gone public with allegations of sexual harassment against him going back more than 30 years.
 
National opinion polls have shown that female voters have been turning against Trump in large numbers, putting his campaign in jeopardy.
 
Trump is also facing widespread defections from Republicans after his lewd comments emerged last weekend.
 
Congress members, particularly those facing tough re-election battles, quickly disavowed Trump, and many said they wouldn't vote for him at all.
 
The most senior of Republican lawmaker in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, announced this week he would no longer campaign for Trump or defend him.