MADISON, Wis. (AP) 鈥� Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump's comment that he would protect women 鈥渨hether the women like it or not鈥� showed that the Republican presidential nominee does not understand women's "agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.鈥�
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 offensive to everybody, by the way," Harris said before she set out to spend the day campaigning in the Western swing states of Arizona and Nevada.
Trump appointed three of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As fallout from the 2022 decision spreads, Trump has taken to boasting at public events and in social media posts that he would 鈥減rotect women鈥� and make sure they wouldn鈥檛 be 鈥渢hinking about abortion.鈥�
At a rally Wednesday evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told his supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was 鈥渋nappropriate.鈥�
He told the crowd that he told aides: 鈥淚 said, 鈥榃ell, I鈥檓 going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.鈥欌��
Harris said the remark was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump. 鈥淭his is just the latest on a long series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency," she said.
Trump and Republicans have struggled with how to talk about abortion rights, particularly as women nationwide face abortion restrictions that have gone far beyond the ability to end an unwanted pregnancy.
Trump has given contradictory answers, saying that women should be punished for having abortions and bragging about appointing the justices. During his successful 2016 campaign, he told voters if elected he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and said he was 鈥減ro-life.鈥�
But he鈥檚 also in recent weeks promised to veto a national abortion ban, after repeatedly refusing to make such a pledge. He's said the states should regulate care and said some laws were 鈥渢oo tough.鈥�
Will Weissert And Colleen Long, The Associated Press
