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Donald Trump has claimed he will be a “protector” of women if he wins the presidency in November.
Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania, where he is currently trailing Kamala Harris by five points, according to a new poll.
The former president, who played a central role in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, addressed the “great women of our country,” at the rally on Monday night and claimed they are “poorer,” “less healthy,” and “less safe on the streets,” than they were four years ago.
“I will fix all of that, and fast, and at long last this nation, and national nightmare, will end. It will end,” Trump vowed. “Because I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector.”
Trump added: “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.”
The Republican presidential nominee also claimed that under his presidency women “will no longer be thinking about abortion”.
Harris has a 21-point advantage with female voters over Trump nationally, according to the latest NBC News survey released at the weekend. The poll found 58 percent of female voters favor Harris compared to 37 percent for Trump.
Similarly, Harris is ahead with women in the key battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. The latest New York Times poll puts Harris at 51 percent in these states compared to Trump at 45 percent.
Trump appears to have taken notice of the latest polls. "I always thought women liked me," he said to the cheering crowd on Monday night. "I never thought I had a problem. But the fake news keeps saying women don’t like me. I don’t believe that.”
Women have responded to his comments, with one analyst branding him “disgusting”.
Alencia Johnson, a former senior advisor to the Biden 2020 campaign, referred to the case last year when a jury in New York found Trump liable for the sexual abuse of writer E Jean Carroll. Trump insists that he has never met Carroll and has labelled her a liar, claims that landed him a second defamation lawsuit, which he lost earlier this year.
Johnson told CNN: “It is so disgusting. Seeing that line, ‘I am your protector’, makes me think about the fact that he was found liable for sexual assault. Some women would say that he is their predator. He’s running scared.”
The Harris campaign also issued a response to Trump’s attempts to appeal to female voters at the rally. Campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said: “Trump keeps trying to tell women that our health, our freedoms, and our lives don’t matter. He tries to tell us what to think and what we care about.”
Chitika continued: “Women know better – and we will not be silenced, dismissed, ignored or treated like we’re stupid. We will vote like our lives depend on it this November, and we’ll elect a leader who fights for us: Vice President Kamala Harris.”
