Trump And The GOP’s Sexist Attacks Kamala
Fox News host Jesse Watters recently made a highly inappropriate comment about Vice President Kamala Harris, drawing attention to the sexist and sexualized remarks that have been increasingly directed at her by some conservatives.
During his show on Tuesday, Watters suggested that Harris would be “paralyzed in the situation room while the generals have their way with her.”
The comment was met with immediate discomfort, even among his co-hosts. Jeanine Pirro, a staunch supporter of former President Trump, openly criticized Watters on air, stating, “I don’t like that,” signaling that he had crossed a line with his rhetoric.
Watters denied that his comment had any sexual connotations, stating, “I’m sure my mother will probably be on MSNBC tonight saying, ‘My son, Jesse Watters, made a joke about Kamala Harris being manhandled by generals in the situation room…
It is disgusting.’ I can see my mom doing that.” Watters frequently references his liberal mother as a way to soften the blow of criticism directed at his far-right views. However, there’s a deeper issue here that deserves our attention.
Watters’s comments are part of a broader pattern of misogynistic attacks aimed at Harris and other women who challenge certain conservative perspectives. On Thursday, the leader of the Republican Party shared, then deleted, a post that, according to the Washington Post, “amplified a vulgar joke about Vice President Kamala Harris performing a sex act.”
The Guardian reported that the remark was a veiled reference to rumors surrounding Harris’s past relationship with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Donald Trump has made similar misogynistic “jokes” before, even reposting a video with the line, “She spent her whole damn life down on her knees.”
These attacks are not only offensive but also part of a long-standing pattern of Trump targeting women with demeaning language. He has referred to Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress involved in a hush-money scandal, as “horseface,” and frequently labels women he dislikes as “nasty.”
Misogyny, much like racism, has been a consistent tactic employed by Trump and many within his circle. However, perhaps what stands out even more is the straightforward approach he often takes when confronted with criticism or when he realizes that something he’s said might land him in hot water: he claims he was just joking, and with that, attempts to dismiss the issue.
In his current campaign, Trump has boldly stated his intention to be a “dictator on day one” if he wins the upcoming election in November. When questioned about these remarks later, he has sometimes insisted that he was only joking.
A similar situation occurred in 2016 when, during a press conference, Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” a reference to Russian hackers potentially uncovering emails he claimed Hillary Clinton had deleted.
Trump later told special counsel Robert Mueller that his comments were made “in jest and sarcastically, as any objective observer would recognize.”
It’s striking how some jokes just don’t seem funny. But when something is dismissed as “just a joke,” it can desensitize the audience to things that would normally feel completely out of line—like joking about becoming a dictator, downplaying serious threats like Russian hacking, or suggesting that the elected vice president got her job because of her sexuality.
It might all seem blatantly wrong, but if the right audience, particularly his base, sees these jokes as genuine, that could be enough to rally his supporters.
Trump’s campaign, along with much of the Republican Party, seems stuck in a time warp, clinging to a 1950s vision of women. His running mate, JD Vance, has repeatedly spouted misogynistic rhetoric. He’s called Democratic women “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives and the choices they’ve made, so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
And in a 2020 interview, Vance agreed with a podcast host who claimed that the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to help raise grandchildren. He also took aim at Randi Weingarten, a leader of the teachers’ union, who is a stepmother, saying, “She doesn’t have a single child.
If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.” The underlying message is clear: Women are supposed to have babies; that’s their purpose. A woman’s worth is tied to her ability to reproduce, and anything that doesn’t lead to that is deemed worthless or wrong.
This mindset is evident when you look at the current policies being pushed by most Republicans. What doesn’t add up is the claim by anyone in the party that they’re not serious about their views on women and their roles.
Take Trump, for instance—he’s recently backtracked on policies that restrict abortion access, flip-flopping on the issue, and vaguely asserting that his party will be “great for women and their reproductive rights.”
Trump has also tried to distance himself from Project 2025, despite clear connections between him and the platform. This project is a wish list of GOP policy dreams, including regulating IVF, using the Comstock Act to control the mailing of abortion pills, and abolishing no-fault divorce.
These policies would make life more dangerous for pregnant women, more precarious for married women, and more challenging for women in general. So while Republican rhetoric might be unsettling, it’s the policies we should really be afraid of.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com.