Trump: I’ll protect women whether they ‘like it or not.’ Harris calls that ‘offensive to everybody’
- Trump has taken to boasting at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and make sure they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”
- At a rally, Trump told his supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was “inappropriate.”
MADISON, Wis. — Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women “whether [they] like it or not” showed that the Republican presidential nominee does not understand women’s “agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”
“I think it’s offensive to everybody,” the Democratic nominee and vice president said before setting out to campaign in Arizona and Nevada, two swing states.
As president, Trump appointed three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who formed the conservative majority that in 2022 overturned federal abortion rights. He has boasted in public and on social media that he’ll “protect women” and make sure they won’t be “thinking about abortion.”
At a rally Wednesday near Green Bay, Wis., he said aides had urged him to stop making such comments because they were “inappropriate.”
He told the crowd that his response was: “I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”
Vice President Kamala Harris dominates in support from California donors.
Harris said the remark was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump.
“This is just the latest on a long series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency,” she said.
Trump and other Republicans have been struggling with how to talk about abortion, particularly as women in many states now face restrictions that go far beyond the ability to end an unwanted pregnancy. Some women, for example, have been denied treatment after their fetus dies, leading to serious risks to their health.
Trump has made contradictory statements on abortion over time.
He has said that women who have abortions should be punished, and has bragged about appointing the three justices who made it possible to end the nationwide right to abortion.
He told voters during his successful 2016 campaign that he was “pro-life,” and that if elected he would nominate justices who would overturn Roe vs. Wade.
But in recent weeks, after repeatedly refusing to make such a pledge, Trump promised to veto a national abortion ban. He has said that states should regulate abortion, but also that some states’ bans are “too tough.”
Weissert and Long write for the Associated Press.
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