New York: A criticism aimed at women supporting Donald Trump by a billionaire backer of Kamala Harris has backfired on her campaign as it is trying to douse controversy over President Joe Biden calling the Republican’s supporters “garbage”.
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“Donald Trump, you never see him around strong, intelligent women. Ever. It’s just that simple. They’re intimidating to him. He doesn’t like to be challenged by them,” Mark Cuban said on the TV talk show, The View, on Friday.
Trump’s Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt hit back saying, “This is extremely insulting to the thousands of women who work for President Trump, and the tens of millions of women who are voting for him.”
Linda McMahon, the co-chair of his transition team, scoffed, “I wonder just how Mark Cuban would define a strong, intelligent woman, especially given that the Left can even define what a woman is.”
That was a dig at the Democratic Party promoting men who are transgender to use facilities for women and to play in women’s sports.
In particular, it was aimed at Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s appointee as Supreme Court Justice, who was asked at a Senate hearing to define a woman and she evaded it by saying, “I am not a biologist”.
The controversy over the insult to women who back Trump came three days after Biden had launched a broader insult at Trump supporters calling them “garbage”.
Elise Stefanik, who is the leader of the Republican Party group in the House of Representatives, said, “Just two days ago, Joe Biden, the sitting President of the United States, called 250 million Americans ‘garbage’. And then we have Kamala Harris’ top ally calling women who support President Trump weak and dumb, saying that you can’t be strong and intelligent and support President Trump.”
“That is the disgraceful closing argument that Democrats are making,” she said.
Trump who proudly put on a trash collector’s vest and mounted a garbage truck to protest Biden’s attack on his supporters, wrote on social media platform X about the latest insult to women backing him: “I surround myself with the strongest of women – With the understanding that ALL women are great, whether strong or not strong.”
He added, “Mark Cuban [is] a dumb guy, who thinks he’s ‘hot stuff’ but he’s absolutely nothing, is now out there saying that I don’t surround myself with strong women.”
Cuban apologised on X, writing, “When I said this during the interview, I didn’t get it out exactly the way I thought I did. So I apologise to anyone who felt slighted or upset by my response. As I said, it wasn’t about trump voters, supporters or employees. Current or former.”
He had remarked about women backing Trump when he was asked on the programme from ABC about Nikki Haley not being asked to campaign for him.
And then he said, “Nikki Haley will call him on his nonsense with reproductive rights and how he sees and treats and talks about women. I mean, he just can’t have her around. It would’t work.”
Haley, who served in Trump’s cabinet and later ran against him for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, has said she was ready to campaign for Trump but wasn’t asked to.
–IANS