Donald Trump kicked off a week of campaigning in Wisconsin on the defense over comments he’s made about women.
During an interview Monday with a local conservative radio talk show, the Republican frontrunner defended calling women names like “fat pig” and bimbo,” by saying he never intended to run for office. Trump said that while he denigrated women on Howard Stern’s talk show over the years, “everyone would be having fun.”
“If Megyn Kelly were a man, I’d be saying the exact same thing of Megyn Kelly. I don’t think there should be a double standard if someone’s a woman,” Trump said Monday, referring to his particular comments calling Kelly a “bimbo” and saying “there was blood coming out of her wherever” during a Republican debate she moderated last August. “I’ve been better to women than any of these candidates,” he said.
During the nearly 20-minute interview, Wisconsin talk show host Charlie Sykes, who supports Ted Cruz, repeatedly took Trump to task for his rhetoric about women.
When given the opportunity to apologize to Heidi Cruz for tweeting an unflattering picture of her, Trump called the tweet a “minor response” to an anti-Trump PAC sharing a nude picture of Melania Trump. He said that Cruz “started it” because his supporters shared the nude picture. “I didn’t even know it was necessarily a very bad picture of her vs. Melania,” he said.
"@Don_Vito_08: "A picture is worth a thousand words" @realDonaldTrump#LyingTed#NeverCruz@MELANIATRUMPpic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
“Obviously, I failed in my effort to introduce you to Wisconsin and our tradition of civility and decency by getting an apology for Heidi Cruz or what you said about Scott Walker,” Sykes said, referring to Trump’s previous comments that Wisconsin is “in turmoil” and a “disaster.”*