Accuser urges Cain to ‘end this’ as candidate denies charges

Herman Cain accuser Sharon Bialek, appearing on three morning shows Tuesday, pushed back against the candidate's denial that he had groped and sexually harassed her in 1997, saying Cain could "end this" by admitting to the alleged transgressions.

"He can step forward and just end this — just end it. I don't want to be here. I don't think anyone wants — just end it," Bialek said on "Good Morning America." "Let's move forward — but unfortunately I don't think that's what's going to happen."

Bialek also emphasized that her decision to come forward was not politically motivated. On CBS's "Early Show," she said she would at least "think about" voting for Cain if he admitted what had happened, while on "GMA" she said Cain would be fit to be president once "he tells the truth."

"I don't despise the man; I actually did it because I wanted to give him the platform to come forward," Bialek said on the "Early Show."

She also said that coming forward was not financially motivated, as had been suggested by some conservative blogs that discovered Bialek had gone through bankruptcy proceedings.

"I could've sold my story, but I didn't," Bialek said on CNN's "American Morning." "My whole objective is to tell the truth."

Bialek went on to defend employing Gloria Allred, a high-profile attorney who has been involved in many celebrity sex scandals and a prominent Democratic donor. Allred herself said her pro-bono services were not politically motivated.

"I criticized Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner in New York with another client and said he should resign and he did ... I criticized President Clinton ... so, it doesn't matter to me the party of the man," Allred said on "American Morning." "All of that is a deflection by him because he doesn't want to deal with the sexual harassment issue."

Cain said Monday on the "Jimmy Kimmel Show" that Bialek's accusations were a "surprise."

"We watched it because we didn't even know that this whole thing about woman No. 4 was going to even come out, so that was a surprise. At least it wasn't one of the many that have the first name 'anonymous,' so now this one actually had a name and a face, so we watched to see what it was and who it was," Cain said.

Cain said the story was "totally fabricated" and that the accusations were upsetting to him personally.

"As I was sitting there, I had a few of my staff members there with me, and I'm sitting here and they're watching me and they could see the steam coming out of my ears," Cain said. "And the feelings that you have when you know that all of this is totally fabricated and you go from anger then you go — you get disgusted, you try to control yourself to make sure you watch this thing all the way through it."

Cain said his wife had watched Bialek's press conference at home in Atlanta — Cain was giving a speech in San Francisco — and that they had spoken immediately afterward. Cain also said that the campaign planned a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Arizona to take on the accusations "head on."

Allred criticized Cain for appearing on "Kimmel," arguing it was inappropriate to joke about sexual harassment claims on late-night television.

"Stop making jokes; women have the right to be free of sexual harassment," Allred said.

"We are dealing with it and tomorrow we're going to have a press conference. Oh, yeah, we are going to have a press conference," Cain said.

The scheduled press conference is a pivot in strategy for Cain after the campaign said late last week that it would no longer be taking questions on the allegations.

"When I made the statement that I'm done talking about this, I was talking about the firestorm last week. I wasn't talking about this new firestorm that we discovered today," Cain said.

"I will talk about any and all future firestorms because here's one thing people know about Herman Cain: I'm in it to win it, and I'm not going to be discouraged."

This story was updated at 8:15 a.m.

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