Two of former President Donald Trump's s*xual assault accusers, Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, have come forward in an ad launched by the Ant-Physchopath PAC, led by attorney George Conway.
The ad premiered on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, and was part of an ongoing effort to shed light on the allegations made against the former President in his bid to assume office.
People Magazine broke the news about the ads. In the first one, Natasha Stoynoff, recanted her experiences with the former President when she visited him at Mar-a-Lago in 2005, while Jessica Leeds did the same about her encounter with Donald Trump on a plane in 1979. Both women maintain that Donald Trump assaulted them.
Who is Natasha Stoynoff, one of the women who alleged that Donald Trump abused her?
Stoynoff is a journalist, with an expansive career across prominent outlets like The Toronto Star (where she also worked as a photographer), The Toronto Sun, and Time Magazine.
She has been working with People magazine for the last 20 years, and according to her bio on Goodreads, she writes books and screenplays. She is also a New York Times best-selling author with six books to her name.
According to Stoynoff, Donald Trump assaulted her when she met with him and his wife, Melania, for an interview back in December 2005. In the ad, she can be heard saying:
"At one point, Melania went upstairs to change her clothes for the next photo shoot, and Trump said to me, 'I want to show you this beautiful painting, this beautiful room.' He leads me to this room, pushes me against the wall, and starts kissing me forcefully. I tried to push him. He kept coming back at me."
She continued, noting that she was appalled and afraid,
"I was in shock and smothered, and he had his hands here against my shoulders. I felt sick inside. I felt horrified, and thank goodness the butler charges into the room. Like many women, I blamed myself. So Trump turned to me and said, 'You know we're going have an affair, don't you?' and Melania was approaching. I was horrified."
Who is Jessica Leeds? Yet another Donald Trump accuser speaks out
Jessica Leeds, on the other hand, was one of the first of many women to come out in 2016, during Donald Trump's first presidential bid, to allege that he had assaulted her.
She recalled being seated next to him in first class on an airplane back in the 70s, when he started making advances towards her. She recalled feeling terrified, and moved to the back of the aircraft to evade him.
She says in the ad:
"The airplane took off, and all of a sudden Donald Trump started groping me. He was trying to kiss me and I'm trying to push him away, he was basically overpowering me. When he started putting his hand up my skirt I got out of the seat, grabbed my purse, and went back to my original seat and I certainly was shook up by the whole thing."
She continued, recalling an instance where the two came face-to-face about two years later. Allegedly, Donald Trump said to her, “I remember you. You’re that c*nt from the airplane.”
According to People, both ads will air on "some of Trump’s favorite channels — Fox News, ESPN, and The Golf Channel — in his home towns of West Palm Beach, Florida, and Bedminster, NY.”
They will also be streamed in Pennsylvania, which is a crucial swing state. Furthermore, plans to air them on NewsNation during the October 1 vice-presidential debate are currently in the works.
Donald Trump has been accused of allegations in the same vein by at least 26 women to date, all of which he has vehemently refuted.
While he has never been hit with criminal charges, a judge ruled against him in a 2023 civil trial for abusing another journalist, E. Jean Carroll, in the 1990s.