GOP Congressman Has Been Complaining For Months About Trump Offending His Daughter

One of the subplots to emerge from Republican vice-presidential candidate and Indiana Governor Mike Pence‘s visit to Capitol Hill Tuesday was a report that Nebraska Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry complained to Pence that he was having trouble explaining Republican nominee Donald Trump to his daughter. “Daddy, you’ve got to do something — Trump hates women,” Fortenberry’s daughter is reported to have said to him, a quote that Fortenberry now confirms, although the meeting was off the record.

It turns out, though, that Rep. Fortenberry has been making this complaint for quite awhile, at least since the Democratic National Convention, according to comments by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). In an interview with the congresswoman Wednesday afternoon, Andrea Mitchell asked Rep. Blackburn to comment on that report, and Blackburn revealed that Fortenberry brought the complaint to her weeks ago, and that it’s important for parents to know how to explain media spin to their children:

I did talk to Mr. Fortenberry a few weeks back about that. I think at that time, during the Democratic convention, you were hearing things that were negative of Mr. Trump. as you look at the record you see what’s happened with hiring of women, promotion of women, how well he’s worked with women in his company. Then also you look at what he brought forward last night. Our children from time to time will hear things and say why do they say that about you? My goodness I have a group targeting me in my district now. It is important, as both a parent and as a member of congress, to bring perspective to that.

Rep. Fortenberry, though, isn’t a child, and the fact that he’s still harboring this complaint months later is an indication that among Republicans, Trump’s hostility toward women is not perceived as “spin,” especially when so much of Hillary Clinton‘s ad content consists only of Trump’s own quotes.