Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump, again, for comments suggesting he’d protect women “whether they like it or not,” calling the GOP candidate’s comments “outrageous” and evidence he “simply does not respect the freedom of women.”
“Did anybody hear what he had to say just yesterday?” Harris said during a get-out-the-vote rally in Reno, Nevada. “And I’ll tell you, it was outrageous. So he said on the issue of freedom of choice, reproductive freedom, he said that he will do what he wants, because, quote, he — this is his perspective — he will do it ‘whether the women like it or not,’ whether the women like it or not. Can you imagine?”
During a Wednesday rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump said he will protect women, whether they “like it or not,” adding he was told by advisers not to say that he wants to protect women.
“I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women serving. ‘Please don’t say that.’ Why? They said, ‘We think it’s — we think it’s very inappropriate,’” Trump said.
Harris highlighted Trump’s comments to argue that he “is someone who simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to make decisions about their own lives, and we know that what he has planned includes a national abortion ban, restricting access to birth control, putting IVF treatments at risk and forcing states to monitor women’s pregnancies.”
Trump said earlier this month he would veto a federal abortion ban if elected, but has waffled in the past when pressed if he’d sign one into law.
Earlier Thursday, the vice president called Trump’s comments “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,” later adding, “I think it’s offensive to everybody, by the way.”
