Trump Doubles Down on Protecting Women ‘Whether They Like It Or Not’ Comment At Rally: ‘Tell Me Why It’s a Rough Statement?’
Former President Donald Trump doubled down on his vow to protect female voters “whether they like it or not” on Saturday in North Carolina before he railed against immigrant crime.
The 2024 Republican Party nominee addressed supporters at a rally in Gastonia when he noted previous comments he made on the subject were deemed “controversial.”
Trump came under fire earlier this week when he vowed to stand up for women amid an outcry over his Supreme Court picks helping to decide to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The former president said he would be such a fierce proctor of women that they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”
“I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not; I’m going to protect them,” he said in comments in which he also said they were vulnerable to crime. His opponent Vice President Kamala Harris categorized the comment as “offensive” on Thursday.
“It’s just – it’s actually is, I think, 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 said.
At his Saturday rally in North Carolina, Trump made note of the controversy and said women would be safe with him as president:
I will protect our women, and I’m going to protect our women. I’m going to protect our women. I got into so much trouble. You saw that. I said, we will protect because I keep hearing I think the women love me. I do because they know. But you know what? If they don’t have me. They got millions of people pouring through and coming up to the suburbs. They say the suburban women, well, the suburbs are under attack right now. When you’re home in your house alone, and you have this monster that got out of prison, he’s got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people. I think you’d rather have Trump.
Trump added he wanted to protect all Americans but added he particularly wanted to keep women safe while he shared that his campaign staff had advised him to approach the issue with more care. Trump said:
So I believe that women have to be protected. Men have to be – children. Everybody. But women have to be protected where they’re at home in suburbia. So when I did it, I said it. I came off stage, and my geniuses at the back [said], Sir, that may be a little bit of a rough statement. What? That you’re going to protect women. Tell me why it’s a rough statement? They said, well, you know, it’s a little self-serving. I mean, they’ll say, who do you think you are? I said, yeah, I’m President, I want to protect the women of our country.
Trump said he conducted a non-scientific poll at a previous rally by a show of hands to see if any women present were “offended” by his comments.
He concluded, “So, I had like 20,000 people. I didn’t have one hand. I didn’t have one one hand – not one hand. Well, I did have one hand.”
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
