Hillary Clinton confirmed during a rare Q&A session in press conference on Monday that she found Donald Trump’s “blood” comments about Fox News’ Megyn Kelly “outrageous.” However, she added that some comments about women’s health from Trump’s rivals at the GOP debate were equally “outrageous.”
“I said it was outrageous, I stand by that,” Clinton said of Trump’s words. “I think more people should say the same.”
“But I just want to remind us that what they say about women — not one woman who is perfectly capable and incredibly impressive, able to take care of herself,” Clinton continued, referring to Kelly, “but all these women that I have fought for, worked for, stood up for, advocated for and want to be a president for, who may not have the opportunity to defend themselves, who may lose the right to exercise a personal choice if certain of the Republicans were to be successful, I don’t want that forgotten.”
While she said Trump “went way overboard” with his “offensive, outrageous, pick your adjective” comments, Clinton added that “what Marco Rubio said has as much of an impact in terms of where the Republican party is today as anybody else on that stage and it is deeply troubling and it should be to the press, not just to those of us who have been doing this work for so long.”
Despite past support for allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, Marco Rubio appeared to reverse that position during last Thursday’s debate.
Clinton laughs off Trump to condemn 'radical' Republican views on women
Democratic frontrunner dismisses Trump as ‘all entertainment’ and calls GOP candidates’ stances on women’s reproductive rights ‘troubling’ and ‘offensive’
Hillary Clinton has seized on Donald Trump’s “offensive” and “outrageous” comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly to condemn the broader field of male Republican candidates for president, casting herself as the enforcer of women’s rights on the campaign trail.
The Democratic frontrunner lambasted the real-estate mogul turned GOP frontrunner as “all entertainment” on Monday, saying that his apparent reference to difficult debate questions from Kelly stemmed from her menstruation deserved attention and that “the Republican party is going to have to deal with him”.
But Clinton quickly turned to a broadside against “radical and offensive positions” on women’s reproductive rights from establishment Republicans considered more likely to contest her in the general election, directly calling out Florida senator Marco Rubio for “offensive” and “troubling” comments on abortion.
“What a lot of the men on that stage said in that debate was offensive,” Clinton told reporters in New Hampshire after a town hall event introducing her plan to make higher education more affordable. “I don’t want people to be confused here about the outrageous comments by one, and just say we’re focused on this, and let the fact that there should be no exceptions for rape or incest go unnoticed or unmentioned. I’m not going to let that happen.”
During Thursday’s first Republican debate, Rubio said he has never advocated for abortions in the case of rape and incest – even though he has – and insisted “future generations will call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies when we never gave them a chance to live”.
Clinton, offering her first detailed response to the debate, called out Rubio specifically as Republicans fend off the possibility of a renewed “war on women” narrative that has haunted the party in the past.
“What Marco Rubio said has as much of an impact on where the Republican party is today as anybody on that stage, and it is deeply troubling,” Clinton said on Monday. “That is as offensive and as troubling a comment as you can hear from a major candidate running for the presidency.”
Rubio quickly fired back: “Hillary Clinton holds radical views on abortion that we look forward to exposing in the months to come,” the senator said in a statement.
Governor Scott Walker, who recently signed a restrictive 20-week abortion ban in Wisconsin, also opposes abortion without exceptions and has said voters agree, though polls tell a different story. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has said he would recognize the fetus as a person from the moment of conception, and called for endowing fetuses with constitutional rights.
