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Donald Trump has ignited another dispute about misogyny in the final days of his presidential campaign, telling a rally he would protect women and “do it whether the women like it or not”, drawing a sharp rebuke from Kamala Harris.
The Republican former president made the remarks at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night, where he arrived in a rubbish truck wearing a hi-vis vest to highlight a gaffe made by Joe Biden, who the previous day had appeared to call Trump’s supporters “garbage”.
Trump has faced several accusations of sexual misconduct, and earlier this year was ordered by a judge to pay $83.3mn for defaming a woman who accused him of sexual assault. He has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he would “protect” women if given another four years in the White House.
But on Wednesday, with less than a week to go until the US presidential election, he told rally-goers that his advisers had tried to stop him from using the line.
“They said, ‘Sir, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say,’” Trump said. “I pay these guys a lot of money; can you believe it?
“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not,” Trump added. “I’m going to protect them. 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 then asked the cheering crowd: “Is there any woman in this giant stadium who would like not to be protected? Is there any woman in this stadium that wants to be protected by the president?”
Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent, leapt on the comments on Thursday morning, telling reporters they were “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.”
Harris said the remarks were “the latest on a series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women”.
The Trump campaign hit back after Mark Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur who is campaigning for Harris, said in a television appearance that you “never” see Trump “around strong, intelligent women, ever”. That prompted a sharp rebuke from Susie Wiles, the veteran political operative and co-manager of the former president’s campaign, as well as dozens of other high-profile, female Trump backers, including Republican operatives and lawmakers.
The Financial Times election poll tracker shows Trump and Harris in a virtual tie in the seven swing states that are likely to determine who wins the White House.
But national and state-specific polls have consistently suggested a gaping gender gap, with women overwhelmingly more likely to vote for Harris and men inclined to back Trump.
A handful of high-profile Trump supporters have raised concerns over his rhetoric about women.
Nikki Haley, Trump’s former UN ambassador who ran against him in the Republican primaries but later endorsed his candidacy, told Fox News before Trump’s Wisconsin rally that women “care about how they’re being talked to and they care about the issues”.
Harris has made abortion and reproductive rights central to her pitch to voters in the final stretch of the campaign, blaming Trump for the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning of Roe vs Wade, which had guaranteed the national right to an abortion, and the wave of Republican-controlled states that have since enacted increasingly hardline abortion restrictions.
Harris on Thursday said: “Trump does not prioritise the freedom of women and the intelligence of women to make decisions about their own lives and bodies, and healthcare for all Americans is on the line in this election as well.”
