Kamala Harris says Trump's comment on women 'is offensive to everybody'
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[November 01, 2024]
By WILL WEISSERT and COLLEEN LONG
PHOENIX (AP) — Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment
that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” shows that the
Republican presidential nominee does not understand women’s rights “to
make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies."
“I think it’s offensive to everybody, by the way," Harris said before
she set out to spend the day campaigning in the Western battleground
states of Arizona and Nevada.
She followed up those remarks at her rally in Phoenix: “He simply does
not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know
what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But
we trust women."
The comments by Trump come as he has struggled to connect with female
voters and as Harris courts women in both parties with a message
centered on freedom. She's making the pitch that women should be free to
make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is
elected, more restrictions will follow as both campaigns sprint toward
Tuesday's presidential election.
At a rally Wednesday evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told his
supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the term protector
because it was “inappropriate.”
Then he added a new bit to the protector line. He said he told his
aides: “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am
going to protect them.”
Those comments shaped much of Harris' Thursday as the two campaigns
jostled over the remarks.
The actress and singer Jennifer Lopez introduced Harris at a Las Vegas
rally that also included a performance by the pop band Maná. Lopez in
emotional remarks talked about her background as a Puerto Rican and
emphasized the importance of women for the Democratic nominee, who had
just arrived after a separate rally in Reno.
“I believe in the power of women,” Lopez said. “Women have the power to
make the difference in this election.”
Lopez also pushed back at comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who at Trump's
Madison Square Garden rally called Puerto Rico “a floating island of
garbage.”
“You can’t even spell American without Rican,” she said. “This is our
country too.”
Trump appointed three of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who
formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion
rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreads, he has taken to
claiming at public events and in social media posts that he would
“protect women” and ensure they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”
Harris tied Trump’s comments to his approach to reproductive rights, but
Trump generally speaks more of protecting women from criminals,
terrorists and foreign adversaries, in keeping with the bleak picture he
paints of a country in decline.
“I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect
them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots
of other things,” Trump said during the rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Before Trump headlined a rally in Henderson, Nevada, on Thursday night,
he responded to a top Harris campaign surrogate's claim that the former
president does not surround himself with strong, intelligent women.
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban said as a guest on ABC's “The View"
earlier Thursday that, “You never see” Trump “around strong, intelligent
women — ever.”
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks
at a campaign rally Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in North Las Vegas,
Nev. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Trump, on X, posted that Cuban was “very wrong,” and lashed out at
him as “a fool" and a "MAJOR LOSER."
“All strong women, and women in general, should be very angry about
this weak man's statement," Trump's post read.
The dispute showed signs of further entrenching each candidate's
supporters.
It was not only women who described Trump's remarks as offensive. At
the Harris rally in Phoenix, Edison Kinlicheenie, 50, said he sees
Trump more as a threat than a protector, noting that the former
president has a track record of preying on women.
“I have a wife and a daughter, so I wouldn’t let no predator like
that come around" them, Kinlicheenie said.
At a Trump rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sarah Pyle, 41, cited
the opposition to allowing transgender athletes to compete in
women's events to portray Trump as someone who helps women.
“I don’t want my girls to grow up in a world like this,” the
Albuquerque mother said, referring to the controversy. “We fought
for women’s rights for so long, and now we’re giving them back to
men. It makes no sense.”
Trump has given contradictory answers about his position on
abortion, at some points saying that women should be punished for
having abortions and showcasing the justices he appointed. During
his successful 2016 campaign, he told voters that if he were
elected, he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn
Roe v. Wade and said he was “pro-life.”
But in recent weeks he's promised to veto a national abortion ban,
after repeatedly refusing to make such a pledge. He has said the
states should regulate care and said some laws were “too tough.”
Since 2022, the patchwork of state laws on abortion has created
uneven medical care. Some women have died. Others have bled in
emergency room parking lots or became critically ill from sepsis as
doctors in states with strict abortion bans send pregnant women away
until they are sick enough to warrant medical care. That includes
women who never intended to end pregnancies. Both infant and
maternal mortality has risen.
Harris’ campaign has highlighted Trump’s statements around women. In
one campaign ad, a woman who became gravely ill with sepsis after a
pregnancy complication stands in front of a mirror looking at a
large scar on her abdomen, as audio plays of Trump’s comments about
protecting women.
Harris hopes abortion will be a strong motivator for women at the
ballot box.
In early voting so far, 1.2 million more women than men have voted
across the seven battleground states, according to data from
analytics firm TargetSmart.
That doesn’t necessarily translate into Democratic gains. But in the
2020 presidential election, 55% of women supported the Democratic
ticket of Joe Biden and Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey
of more than 110,000 voters.
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Associated Press reporters Adriana Gomez Licon in Henderson, Nevada,
Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Gabriel Sandoval and
J.J. Cooper in Phoenix and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa,
contributed to this report.
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