Vice President Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), predicted Saturday that women will send former President Trump a message on Election “whether he likes it or not.”
“Now here’s the good news, I kind of have a feeling that women all across this country, from every walk of life, from either party, are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump next Tuesday, November fifth, whether he likes it or not,” Walz said at a campaign event in Flagstaff, Ariz., on Saturday as the crowd then cheered and started chanting “vote.”
Walz’s comment in the battleground state of Arizona comes just a few days after Trump said at a Green Bay, Wis., rally that his advisor told him not to characterize himself as a “protector” of women.
“My people told me about four weeks ago, I would say, ‘No, I want to protect the people; I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women,’” Trump said.
“They said, ‘Sir, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say.’ I pay these guys a lot of money; can you believe it?” the GOP nominee continued. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. 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.’”
The former president made a similar comment in September during a rally.
“I am your protector. I want to be your protector,” he said. “As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh, he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector.”
Harris slammed Trump’s remarks, calling them “offensive.”
“It 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 on Thursday. “And this is just the latest in a series of reveals by the former president on how he thinks about women and their agency.”
The GOP nominee has struggled with amassing more support from women during his as recent polls have shown him being behind Harris on that front. But Trump has been outpacing the vice president among male voters with surveys showing a big gender gap between the two candidates.
The Hill has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.
