Donald Trump flatly denied a new report his business violated the U.S. embargo with Cuba.
In an interview with WMUR in New Bedford, N.H., on Thursday, the GOP nominee pushed back against a Newsweek report that alleged he reimbursed a consulting firm called Seven Arrows $68,000 to explore business opportunities in Cuba in 1998 for Trump Hotels & Casinos Inc. Seven Arrows advised Trump Hotels to mask the consulting bill as a charitable expense, according to the report.
"I never went to Cuba. I've never been to Cuba. I never did business with Cuba," he declared. "There's nothing else to say. I never did business in Cuba. I'd tell you very openly if I did. I was not involved in doing business in Cuba."
U.S. corporate expenditures were prohibited in Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1998.
In another interview with NH1 News, Trump questioned the integrity of reporter Kurt Eichenwald.
"There's this guy who has a very bad reputation as a reporter," Trump told the local outlet. "You see what his record is. He wrote something about me in Cuba. No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba."
Hillary Clinton's campaign grabbed onto the issue as well.
"Trump’s business with Cuba appears to have broken the law, flouted U.S. foreign policy, and is in complete contradiction to Trump's own repeated, public statements that he had been offered opportunities to invest in Cuba but passed them up," Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.