Kamala Harris slammed Donald Trump for his comment that he would be the ‘protector’ of women ‘whether the women like it or not,’ calling it ‘offensive’ and part of a pattern of behavior with the former president.
‘It’s very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,’ Harris told reporters in Wisconsin, where she is campaigning.
‘And this is just the latest on a series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency,’ she added. She specificially pointed to abortion bans that have been enacted around the country after justices he appointed to the Supreme Court helped strike down Roe vs. Wade.
Harris also said the comments were offensive to men.
‘It is offensive to everybody by the way,’ she said, adding that ‘our campaign really is about bringing people together, people of very different and diverse backgrounds.’
Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday night that he would protect American women ‘whether the women like it or not.’
He has been making the argument he would protect women by making their communities safer and by making sure they won’t ‘be thinking about abortion,’ as he faces more and more backlash for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned abortion rights.
‘I said, well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them,’ the former president said.
Democrats believe Trump’s off-putting comments about women combined with the abortion ban his Supreme Court put into place could help swing enough voters – particularly women – to hand them the White House.
Polls show Trump has a significant deficit with female voters compared to Harris.
An analysis of Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted in October shows that, among women, Harris led Trump by 12 points.
Additionally, Harris only trailed Trump by 2 points among white women – 46% to 44% – a much smaller margin than the 16-point lead Trump had over Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Democrats have harnessed reproductive rights as a rallying cry for their base, an issue they believe will bring women out to vote for their candidate.
And Harris has used the issue to target moderate Republican and independent women, particularly in the suburbs.
Many of those women supported Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary and Harris thinks she can win them over.
The Harris campaign has used former Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic of Trump, on the campaign trail to highlight his attitude twoard women.
‘When you think about that level of instability, the level of erratic decision-making, the misogyny, that’s not someone that you can entrust with the power of the Oval Office,’ Cheney said.
Harris has even brought in some celebrity help to remind women their vote is private.
Julia Roberts touts Harris in a campaign ad featuring women who secretly vote for Harris despite their husbands backing Trump.
The actress reminds women the voting booth is ‘the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know.’
Republicans have noticed – and are worried.
‘Early vote has been disproportionately female. If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple,’ Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point and a close Trump ally, wrote on X.
Trump has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault – which he has denied – including by blonde 6′ 1′ pageant queen Beatrice Keul.
‘I think my size saved me,’ Keul told DailyMail.com of the 1993 incident in the Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned at the time.
Her description of the events closely mirrors accusations made by several other women over the years – including writer E. Jean Carroll who has been awarded more than $88 million in damages after Trump accused her of lying over an alleged assault in a Bergdorf Goodman.