GOP women rip Trump: He's a 'pig'

Politico

By Eli Stokols

September 11 ,2015

GOP women rip Trump: He's a 'pig' 

Donald Trump, in seemingly suggesting that Carly Fiorina isn’t attractive enough to be president, crossed the line of general decency. Again.

Trump, of course, has proven thus far that, for him, there is no line at all. But the reactions of outraged conservative women show that the GOP's front-runner may have reached the outer boundaries of what even he can get away with.

“Who the hell cares what she looks like? If you want to quibble with her on policy, or quibble with her record at Hewlett Packard, that’s fair,” said Katie Packer Gage, a GOP strategist who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and whose firm is now working for Marco Rubio. “But people should not be judged by their appearance."

“There’s already enough pressure on women than to have to deal with this pig who thinks Heidi Klum is no longer attractive because she got a little bit old," Gage said. "A guy who trades in wives because they get old is what women face every day and are disgusted by. I hate to break it to him, but Melania is going to get old too."

The blustery billionaire has remained atop the polls of the Republican presidential field for two months, in spite of – or, perhaps, because of – the insults he has hurled at his rivals and the broadly disparaging remarks about women, veterans and Hispanics that would likely sink a normal politician.

But some Republicans, offended by his latest comments and fed up with his running roughshod over the entire GOP field, are hopeful that Trump’s latest insult will finally come back to bite him.

“One of the reasons people like Donald Trump is they believe he’s good at hiring and firing people and running a business,” said Liz Mair, a Republican consultant who is close to Fiorina but not affiliated with the candidate or any other campaign.

“That’s just not plausible to anybody if he keeps giving the game away that he thinks relevant qualifications for serving in important jobs have to do with the way you apply powder and lip liner, as opposed to whether you’re smart, have good ideas and would be a tough Commander in Chief," she said. "This isn’t the Miss Universe pageant.”

Trump, who starred in NBC’s The Apprentice for 14 seasons, has effectively turned the 2016 GOP presidential primary into reality television – a construct set up to reward the biggest personality, not the candidate with gravitas or well thought out policy ideas but simply the one who fills the screen.

While the insults seem to be doing no harm to Trump, Republicans worry about a lasting effect on the party and its ability to make gains next year with women and Hispanics, the very constituencies their current frontrunner seems intent on alienating.

“It’s incumbent on all of these candidates, Ted Cruz included, even though he’s currently pressing his lips firmly on Trump’s ass, to call this out and say this isn’t straight talk,” Gage said. “This is rudeness and bad manners and it shouldn’t be condoned. There is an existing problem that women view Republicans as old grouchy white misogynists and we need to do everything we can this cycle to change that; and he’s definitely stopping us in our tracks on that.”

There’s also the impact on the candidates themselves. Trump’s most effective barb to date, his dismissal of Jeb Bush as a “low energy person,” threatens to crystallize how the electorate views the establishment’s favorite son.

Bush and candidates best able to exploit the loose campaign finance rules of the super PAC era to amass record setting war chests to fund television ads were expected to dominate this campaign cycle. But so far, Trump is monopolizing the airwaves without spending a dime and being enabled by news networks broadcasting his every utterance and allowing him to call in to interview shows from the confines of Trump Tower.

On Thursday morning as Trump was dominating yet another news cycle, this one focused on his remarks about Fiorina in a new Rolling Stone profile, he insisted his comments were about Fiorina’s “persona,” not her appearance – just as he insisted weeks ago that his statement about Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly having “blood coming out of her…wherever” wasn’t a reference to her menstrual cycle.

But the comments, as Fiorina said when asked about them Wednesday night, speak for themselves. Paul Solotaroff, the author of the profile, describes Trump watching Fox News on his plane as Fiorina appears on screen: "Trump's expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. 'Look at that face!' he cries. 'Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!' The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. 'I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?'”

“The statement on Carly, I'm talking about her persona,” Trump told an incredulous Chris Cuomo during an appearance on CNN.

Ironically enough, Trump’s bluster carried Fiorina back into the news – she was trending on Twitter and Google searches Thursday morning.

Bush, who has stood alone for the last few weeks in his increasing willingness to take Trump on, tweeted Thursday: “Trumps [sic] demeaning remarks are small and inappropriate for anyone, much less a presidential candidate. Carly & country deserve better. Enough”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also chimed in on Twitter, denouncing the "personal attacks" as "plain inappropriate and wrong."

"It's time for these shameless attacks to end," his tweet said.

On Thursday in a speech at the National Press Club, Bobby Jindal lambasted Trump, brushing him off as “a narcissist and an egomaniac.” But Jindal, who has gotten little traction in the 17-candidate field, spoke to a crowd of just 20 people, his harsh words, viewed by most as another desperate gambit by an attention-seeking also-ran.

But as a new poll Thursday showed Trump breaking the 30 percent mark for the first time as the race enters the more competitive fall stage, more candidates may be ready or forced to take Trump to task.

Joni Ernst, whose election in a competitive Iowa senate race last year turned her overnight into one of the GOP’s most important female voices, lamented the lack of civility among presidential aspirants without mentioning Trump specifically. “I would like to think that our presidential candidates would at least respect other people, whether they are male or female,” Ernst said Thursday, according to a report by the Des Moines Register. “I think that is lacking in some of these statements that have come out of several presidential candidates.”

Hillary Clinton didn’t mention Trump by name but noted Thursday that Republicans have “one particular candidate who just seems to delight in insulting women every chance he gets. I must say, if he emerges, I would love to debate him.”

Fiorina, the only woman in the GOP field, suggested in an interview Wednesday night on Fox News that “maybe, just maybe, I'm getting under his skin a little bit, 'cause I am climbing in the polls."

Her campaign told POLITICO Thursday she had no additional comments, but she may have more to say next week when she is sharing the stage with Trump and the other leading GOP candidates in the second official debate.

“I was proud of her response, that she didn’t play into the gender trap at all,” said Debbie Brown, executive director of the conservative Colorado Women’s Alliance. “I would suspect she would want to debate Donald Trump on issues that actually matter to people. Her stock has been rising. Yes, he has tapped into the angry Republicans who are rightfully angry, but he has nothing specific to offer – except insults.”

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