Donald Trump Says Nobody has more Respect for women than him

Donald Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner who has incessantly berated, objectified and harassed women, claimed on Saturday that “Nobody has more respect for women than Donald Trump!”

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The announcement capped a week in which his campaign engaged in a vile mudslinging contest with supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), each side making unflattering accusations about the other candidate’s wife.

On Saturday, Trump went on Twitter to defend his “respect for women.”

“The media is so after me on women,” he wrote.

Trump also shared tweets from fans affirming how much he respects women.

Trump has claimed that he “cherishes” women, but has shown little evidence of it either in the current campaign or in his personal history. Last September, Trump said of former GOP candidate Carly Fiorina, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?” Charging that Fox News’ Megyn Kelly was asking him unfair questions during the August presidential debate, Trump insinuated that it was because she was menstruating. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. There was blood coming out of her wherever,” he said. Sexual assault is to be expected in the military, Trump tweeted in 2013. And in 1991, Trump told Esquire, “it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

Trump’s tendency to disparage is not helping him with female voters. Nearly half of Republican women say they can’t see themselves voting for Donald Trump, according to a NBC/WSJ poll. He has a 42 percent unfavorable rating among Republican women, a CNN/ORC and Morning Consult poll found.

Democrats believe Trump’s vocal attacks on women are pushing more and more female voters to their side of the court, the The New York Times reported. Women favor Hillary Clinton 55 percent to 35 percent, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, twice the gender gap of the 2012 presidential election.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.