Donald Trump says women who accused him of sexual assault are ‘sick’

Donald Trump has said the more than a dozen women who have accused him of sexual assault are "sick".

Speaking at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Republican nominee said the women had made "phony" claims and that he had never met most of these women.

"I have no idea who these women are," he told the crowd. "I have no idea. I have no idea. I think you know I have no idea as you understand for me for a lot of years."

"These people are sick," he added.

Despite his campaign team’s wish for the party nominee to focus on the issues that are resonating with his voter base, like the economy, trade and jobs, Mr Trump insisted that he wanted to talk about the volley of accusations against him.

He also accused People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, who accused the nominee of sexually assaulting her when she visited his Mar-a-Lago resort to interview him, of wanting "free publicity" and questioned why she did not report the incident more than a decade ago.

"She’s a liar," he said. "Check out her Facebook page, you’ll understand."

A New York Times article exposed the stories of two women, one of whom, Jessica Leeds, claimed that Mr Trump groped her "like an octopus" as she sat next to him in first class on a plane.

"I think it’s a disgusting thing, [that’s] being pushed. They have no witnesses. There has been nobody else," he said.

"When you looked at those horrible woman last night, you said: ‘I don’t think so.'" he said, referring to the women’s physical appearance. "I don’t think that would happen with very many people but that [sexual interaction with them] certainly wouldn’t happen with me."

He also made a joke that he never sat alone in clubs, hours after former model Kristin Anderson accused him in the Washington Post of sliding his hand up her skirt as she sat next to him in the China Club in the 1990s.

He insisted all the claims were “100 per cent fiction”, “total fabrication” and “false” - conveniently surfacing shortly before the election and as a way to distract voters from the WikiLeaks scandal surrounding his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“It’s like unbelievable. Even a simple investigation would have shown these allegations against me - in just about all cases - are false,” he said.

His remarks follow house speaker Paul Ryan telling a crowd in Madison, Wisconsin, that the election was "not all about its leaders" and urged them to vote Republican to keep control of the senate.