Harris says Trump’s comment about women ‘is offensive to everyone’

PHOENIX (AP) – Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” shows the Republican presidential nominee doesn’t understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own life, including their own body.”

“By the way, I think it’s offensive to everybody,” Harris said before settling down to spend the day campaigning in the western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.

She followed up on those remarks at her meeting in Phoenix: “He simply doesn’t respect women’s freedom or women’s intelligence to know what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women.”

The comments from Trump come as he has struggled to connect with female voters and as Harris woos women in both parties with a message centered on freedom. She emphasizes that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies, and that if Trump is elected, more restrictions will follow.

Trump appointed three of the justices to the US Supreme Court who made up the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreadshe has taken to claiming at public events and in posts on social media that he wanted to “protect women” and ensure that they would not “think about abortion.”

At a rally Wednesday night near Green Bay, Wis., Trump told supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the term 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’m going to protect them.”

Harris said the remark was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump.

“This is just the latest in a long line of revelations from the former president about how he thinks about women and their agency,” she said.

Harris linked Trump’s comments to his approach to reproductive rights, but Trump generally talks more about 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 a lot of other things,” Trump said during a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

He appeared to tie himself to abortion when he first used the “protector” language in a Truth Social post and at a Sept. 23 rally in Pennsylvania. He assured the women who would be “protected” that they “will no longer think about abortion.”

Before heading a rally in Henderson, Nevada, on Thursday night, Trump responded to a top Harris campaign surrogate’s claim that the former president doesn’t surround himself with strong, intelligent women.

Mark Cuban said as a guest on ABC’s “The View” earlier Thursday that “You never see ‘Trump’ around strong, intelligent women — ever.”

Trump wrote on X that Cuban was “very wrong” and lashed out at him as “a fool” and a “BIG LOSER.”

“All strong women, and women in general, should be very angry at this weak man’s statement,” Trump’s post read.

Harris was also in Nevada with rallies in Reno and Las Vegas. In Reno, pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted her speech just as she was about to criticize Trump on abortion, prompting Harris to emphasize that her campaign is fighting for democracy as she told supporters to vote for a ballot question in Nevada , which would provide a state constitutional right to abortion.

“Make sure you vote up and down the ballot to really protect that right,” Harris said.

The dispute showed signs of further entrenching each candidate’s supporters.

It wasn’t just 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 for preying on women.

“I have a wife and a daughter, so I wouldn’t let a predator like that get around” them, Kinlicheenie said.

At a Trump rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sarah Pyle, 41, cited 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 are giving them back to men. It makes no sense.”

Trump have given conflicting answers about his position on abortion, at some points saying that women should be punished for having abortions and showing the judges he appointed. During his successful 2016 campaign, he told voters that if 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 has vowed to veto a national abortion ban after repeatedly refusing to make such a promise. He has said states should regulate care and said some laws were “too harsh.”

Since 2022, the patchwork of state abortion laws has created uneven medical treatment. Some women are dead. Others have bled in the emergency room parking lots or became critically ill with sepsis, as doctors in states with strict abortion bans send pregnant women away until they are sick enough to warrant medical attention. That includes women who never intended to end pregnancies. Both infant and maternal mortality have increased.

Harris’ campaign has highlighted Trump’s statements about women. In a campaign ad, a woman who became seriously ill with sepsis after a pregnancy complication stands in front of a mirror looking at a large scar on her abdomen while audio plays of Trump’s comments about protecting women.

Harris hopes abortion will be a powerful motivator for women at the polls.

In early voting so far, 1.2 million more women than men have voted across the seven battleground states, according to data from research firm TargetSmart.

It does not 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 VoteCasta 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 JJ Cooper in Phoenix and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.