At a New Hampshire rally on Tuesday, Donald Trump managed to make some very sexist comments while attempting to explain his ideas on freedom in other countries. First he said he felt it was against the United States’ best interests to attempt to change foreign laws requiring women to wear burkas. Things quickly got weird.
“They want to [wear burkas]. What the hell are we getting involved for?” He asked, according to Cosmopolitan. He recounted hearing from women who wore burkas by choice, and concluded that women in those countries “don’t want freedom.”
He continued on to say that wearing them was a good way to avoid putting on makeup, quickly trivializing a complicated religious and politial issue and turning it into a simple matter of physical beauty.
“The fact is it’s easier. You don’t have to put on make-up,” he said.
Of course, he couldn’t help but think about think about the issue in terms of men, and alluded to the popular trope of women taking forever to get ready while their faster, more efficient husbands wait for them, saying, “I tell you if I was a woman—’I’m ready, darling. Let’s go.'”
Before making the sexist comments, Trump also noted that he wouldn’t call Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by his title.
“I’ll say, ‘Hey baby, how ya doing?’ I will never call him the Supreme Leader.”
It’s one thing to disagree with Khamenei’s policies, but to call him ‘baby’ of all things is incredibly disrespectful. Trump didn’t seem to find that an issue, though, and immediately claimed he would “get along with him probably.”
After the rally, he made an appearance on “The Today Show with Matt Lauer,” and attempted to relate to the struggles of everyday Americans by saying his father gave him only a “small loan of a million dollars” when he was starting out. Okay, Trump. We’ve heard enough—Until the debate tonight.