Real estate mogul/reality TV star Donald Trump is defending Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who is taking a lot of heat for a Politico report that the National Restaurant Association paid settlements to female staffers who accused him of sexual harassment when he headed the organization in the 1990s.
"I think it's very unfair,” Trump told Fox News, referring to the accusations against Cain. “You become a leading candidate, you become just a person of prominence, and somebody sues you. They say all sorts of things, and perhaps he settled just because he didn't want to go through the legal fees.”
Story continues below video.
These cases are settled to save money and avoid bad publicity, Trump said. “Then it ends up blowing up in his face. I think it's very unfair. The sad thing is they’re settled all the time, and they’re baseless allegations.”
How all this will affect Cain depends on the details of the cases, Trump said. “I think it should be nothing. Unfortunately, I don’t think the public will feel that way, and that’s very unfair.”
The settlements seem to have made everyone happy, Trump says. “The sad part is that they [the allegations] may have been totally false.”
Trump says Cain’s decision to settle may have been a mistake and that what he should say now is that he settled to save legal fees. “He probably should have come forward and said I was falsely accused of something, and I settled to save legal fees.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.