Donald Trump refused to walk back sexist remarks made about Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Sunday, instead reiterating that she would not be in the race unless she was a woman.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, the leading Republican candidate also denied that his comments were harming him among women voters.
“I’m my own strategist, and I like what I said, and it’s true. I only tell the truth, and that’s why people vote for me,” Trump said. He also told host Chris Wallace that he would be using Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ comment about Clinton being “unqualified” against Clinton in the general election, calling it an incredible “sound bite.”
He then added that Clinton “is a strong person and is going to have to be able to take it.”
“The fact is, the only card that she has is the woman’s card,” Trump said. “She’s done a lousy job in so many ways and even women don’t like her. They don’t like her. But it is the woman’s card, and she plays it, and I’ll let you know in about six months whether or not she plays it well.”
Trump then wrapped up by doubling-down on his assertion that Clinton’s gender is the only thing keeping her in this race.
“If she were not a woman, she wouldn’t even be in this race,” he said.
His comments almost exactly mirror a statement he made four days earlier, after a dominant primary performance Tuesday, where he said that if Clinton “were a man, I don’t think she’d get five percent of the vote.”
Here Are All The Sexist Things Donald Trump Said About Hillary Clinton Wednesday MorningPolitics by CREDIT: AP Photo/Richard Drew At the very end of a news conference commemorating his absurdly dominant…thinkprogress.orgBoth Clinton and Trump have high unfavorable ratings with voters, but polls indicate that in a two-way matchup, female support leans heavily for Clinton — an April CBS News poll found that 50 percent of white woman would vote for Clinton, as opposed to 36 percent for Trump.
Similarly, a Gallup poll released in April found that, among women, Trump is incredibly unpopular. Seventy percent of women have an unfavorable opinion of him, with only 23 percent holding a favorable opinion.
The Clinton campaign, for its part, has been trying to capitalize on Trump’s incendiary remarks by selling supporters a “woman card” that they can purchase for $1.