Herman Cain emphatically denied on Monday that he had ever sexually harassed anyone, calling allegations of harassment by two former employees “totally baseless and totally false.”
With the allegations threatening his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Cain acknowledged the accusations in an interview with Fox News Channel but said that he had “never sexually harassed anyone.”
“I was falsely accused while I was at the National Restaurant Association,” Cain said. He said that an investigation into the allegations found them to be “baseless.” He defended his integrity and suggested someone was putting a “cloud” over his campaign.
“It is totally baseless and totally false,” Cain added. “Never have I committed any sort of sexual harassment.”
Politico reported Sunday night that Cain had sexually harassed two women while he was head of the National Restaurant Association and that the women were given financial settlements and left the association.
In the Fox interview, Cain said that he did not know of any settlements. “If the restaurant association did a settlement, I wasn’t even aware of it and I hope it wasn’t for much,” he said. “If there was a settlement, it was handled by some of the other officers at the restaurant association.”
Cain said there were no additional harassment allegations. Should any surface, Cain said, they would be “trumped up allegations,” adding: “I assure you people will simply make them up.”
Cain said he was determined not to allow the allegations to derail his campaign. He has surged to the top of recent national and key state polls, buoyed by his experience as a businessman, his signature “9-9-9” tax plan and his folksy demeanor on the debate stage.
“What you can expect from my campaign is for me to stay on message, for us to continue to do the things and execute our strategy,” Cain told Fox, adding: “I’m an unconventional candidate, as you know, and we are running an unconventional campaign.”
Earlier Monday, making his first public appearance since the Politico story was published Sunday night, Cain declined to address the allegations.
“I’ll take all of the arrows later,” Cain told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. The candidate declined to speak to reporters as he arrived at AEI’s downtown offices, muttering only a quiet “good morning” as he stepped out of his black sports utility vehicle and slipped into a side door.
When pressed by a reporter at the AEI appearance, Cain said: “I’m going by the ground rules that my host has set.” The forum’s moderator asked the audience to keep its questions focused on fiscal policy, and indeed Cain spent much of his time discussing his tax plan.
At the same time, Cain’s campaign manager, Mark Block, appeared on MSNBC and flatly denied that Cain harassed anyone.
“Herman Cain has never sexually harassed anybody, period. End of story,” Block said in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown.”
“The only people who spoke publicly about the story in the article are the ones who are in the best position to know,” Block added. “They are the chair, the vice chair, and immediate past chair of the National Restaurant Association during Herman Cain’s tenure. And all three said that he was a man of total integrity. Every negative word and accusation in the article is sourced to a series of unnamed or anonymous sources and this is questionable at best.”
Asked about the financial settlements reported by Politico, Block stopped short of denying them, saying he was not “personally aware” of any settlements.
Cain was to appear at the National Press Club around midday Monday.
Throughout the campaign, Cain’s wife, Gloria, has stayed out of the spotlight. No one answered the door Monday morning at the family’s house, a handsome brick rancher in an upscale gated community in McDonough, Ga., about 20 miles south of Atlanta. A white Lexus SUV sat in front of the three-car garage, but it was unclear if anyone was home.
Cain told Fox that voters would “meet my wife publicly in an exclusive interview that we are currently planning and anticipating,” but said she would not be a regular presence on the campaign trail.
In its story published Sunday night, Politico reported that at least two women accused Cain of making inappropriate comments and contact during his tenure at the trade lobbying group in the 1990s, and the situation prompted the women, who received undisclosed settlements as a result of their complaints, to leave the organization.
A Politico reporter questioned Cain about the allegations following the candidate’s appearance Sunday morning on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Cain declined to comment on the specific allegations. He said that he had “thousands of people working for me” over his years as a businessman and he declined to comment on the allegations “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.”
On Sunday night, Cain’s campaign pushed back aggressively against the report, charging that “Washington establishment circles” were using the allegations to bring down the surging candidacy of the former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive.
“Fearing the message of Herman Cain who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, Inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon wrote in an e-mail statement. “Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the Chief Executive Officer at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.”
The report comes as Cain appears to be winning the hearts of conservative activists. A Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa caucus voters published this weekend showed Cain effectively tied for the lead with Mitt Romney, 23 percent to 22 percent, with Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) in third with 12 percent. That mirrors recent national polls, as well as surveys in other early voting states.
Some leading Republican pundits suggested Monday that reports of the harassment allegations could seriously undermine Cain’s campaign.
“He’s not denying, but he ain’t responding, and that’s not the best place to be,” GOP strategist Karl Rove said on Fox News Channel. “If these allegations are not true, say they aren’t true and put it behind you. If not, better get everything out sooner rather than later, because in a situation like this, if there is something there, that something’s going to come out.”
In Iowa, influential conservative radio commentator Steve Deace said the Politico report is another “red flag” about Cain.
“Like many conservatives it’s hard to resist the temptation of believing this is just another character assassination by the liberal media,” Deace said in an e-mail interview Monday. “On the other hand, there have been too many red flags about Cain in the past few weeks to just dismiss it without a careful vetting.”
Staff writers Perry Bacon Jr. in Washington and Laura Vozella in McDonough, Ga., contributed to this report.