Herman Cain told FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren on Monday night that any and all sexual harassment claims, past and future, were “baseless” and “not credible.”
Cain told the FOX host that he believed the claims were coming out now “because I’m doing so well in this Republican presidential campaign.”
“I’m in the top tier,” he said, adding that “a lot of people have a problem with the fact that I’m doing so well and I’m so likable.”
The awkward half-hour interview capped a long day of public appearances and shifting explanations over a report in Politico that the National Restaurant Association reached financial settlements with two women who claimed Cain had sexually harassed them.
Whereas earlier in the day, Cain said that he wasn’t aware there was any deal reached with any of the women in question, he told Van Susteren that in fact he was aware of one of the settlements.
According to Cain, his general counsel told him at the conclusion of the incident that “this started out where she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement — I dont remember the number… but then he said the good news is because there was no basis for this we ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement, quite frankly, maybe three months salary or something like that.”
Cain said that the second accuser, whose name Politico provide his staff with, was another story: he had no memory of any formal complaint at all from his time at the restaurant association. The National Restaurant Association has so far declined to offer any details on either case or even confirm whether their existence.
Van Susteren repeatedly pressed Cain on whether he may have misunderstood the ground rules of proper office behavior and inadvertently crossed the line. Asked whether he had a “roaming eye,” Cain replied “I enjoy flowers like everybody else,” but said that he knew the limits.
“I believe I have a good sense for where you cross the line relative to sexual harassment but you have to know the lady, the individual,” he said.
He offered up only one specific complaint he could recall from his accuser, an incident in which he compared her height to that of his wife with a hand gesture at his chin. He said he was partly exonerated by his accusers’ inability to provide eyewitness testimony to back up her claims.
“One of the things that I do recall, my general counsel telling me that one of the reasons that [there] was no basis to it is because she couldn’t find any witnesses to corroborate her story,” he said.
Asked about whether he had any other skeletons in his closet, Cain preemptively painted any future accusers as opportunists.
“Is it possible that someone is going to make something up, yes, but is it going to be credible in terms of there was an actual sexual harassment case filed no,” he said. “Because we would have known about it.”
