Trump Brushes Off Accusations of Sexism

In a CNN interview Monday, Wolf Blitzer asked Donald Trump to account for the many sexist comments he’s made about women over the years. Not surprisingly, Trump brushed off any accusations of misogyny, claiming that “nobody respects women more than I do” and, at one point, suggested that he doesn’t remember saying the things he’s on record as having said. Given his chronic inability to admit any fault at all about anything, Trump’s dismissal of his sexist past is par for the course and wholly unsurprising.

First, Blitzer played a recent ad that features women reading Trump’s many misogynistic quotes about women aloud, including the time he insulted his former opponent Carly Fiorina for being ugly. Blitzer asked Trump if his past was coming back to haunt him. Trump, characteristically, denied any and all wrongdoing.

“Nobody respects women more than I do,” Trump insisted. “I don’t even know some of those statements. I mean I’m hearing these statements, I don’t even know what they are. Nobody respects women more than I do.”

Trump’s insistence that he respects women more than anyone else in the world would seem to contradict his earlier claim that “you have to treat [women] like shit,” but hey, consistency has never been the Donald’s strong suit.

Blitzer then confronted Trump about his feud with Fox News' Megyn Kelly. He began by quoting a statement from Fox News that accused Trump of harboring an “extreme, sick obsession” with Kelly that’s “beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate.” It’s not a terribly outlandish claim — Trump, who once insinuated that Kelly gave him a hard time at a primary debate because she was menstruating, has sent a total of 117 tweets about the Fox News host, most of them exceedingly negative.

Trump’s response to Blitzer was, well, also not surprising.

“She’s got the obsession,” Trump snarled. “Look at her show. Look at the airtime I get on her show. And I don’t do her show. She wants me to do it so badly... they want a primetime special, I said no, I won’t do it.”

Trump added that Kelly is “hotter now than ever before because of me,” and that she “should give me at least half of her salary.” Well, OK then.

Trump’s net favorability with women voters currently stands at negative 32 percent, which is magnitudes worse than anybody else running for president. By contrast, Mitt Romney’s favorability with women was just negative 2 percent before the 2012 election. Trump may think that no one respects women more than him, but many American women don’t appear convinced.