Donald Trump Has the Most Ridiculous Excuse Ever for His Sexism
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Before he became the leading Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump was a celebrity: That is his excuse for making sexist remarks in the past, he told Wisconsin talk radio host Charles Sykes on Monday.
AP/Robert F. Bukaty - apimages.com
While celebrities don't necessarily play by a different set of rules, Trump said "I never thought I would run for office," and that "many people — [such as] Howard Stern — would interview me and everybody would be having fun, and the women would be laughing."
The candid admission came about in response to a question about the GOP front-runner's exceptional unpopularity among women in polls. A Washington Post-ABC News poll from this month found that Trump's favorability rating among women has slumped 10 points since November — down to 23 percent.
An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, also from this month, raised similar questions about Trump's ability to reach female Republican primary voters, 47 percent of whom said they couldn't imagine throwing their support behind the businessman. Compared to the rest of the Republican field, that number stands out.
NBC News - nbcnews.com
Trump's history of sexist remarks has been a focal point of the 2016 election. He's defended his record by insisting that he respects women and "will be the best thing that ever happened to women" as president.
"I’ve hired a tremendous amount of women," Trump said on Monday. "Women are in my highest executive positions, I pay women in many cases more than I pay men, which is more than most people can say."
But while Trump argues that his sexist comments exist exclusively in the past, the issue has recurred in recent months — since becoming a candidate and political figure — in the form of unsavory attacks against Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, insults thrown at former candidate Carly Fiorina, and manually retweeting a rude meme about Sen. Ted Cruz's wife, for example. That might explain why female Republican voters have increasingly turned away from Trump even after he made the formal leap from celebrity to presidential candidate.
