Harris seizes on Trump’s pledge to protect women ‘whether they like it or not’

Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald Trump on Thursday, saying his campaign rally pledge to protect women “whether they like it or not” was “offensive to everybody.”

“It’s just — it’s actually is, I think, very offensive to women in terms of not understanding their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” Harris told reporters in Wisconsin.

Harris quickly rephrased her statement, saying, “It is offensive to everybody.”

During the rally at Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night, Trump attempted to appeal to women voters.

“I want to protect the women of our country,” said Trump.

He said his remarks went against guidance from his advisers, whom he claimed had called the statement “very inappropriate.”

“I said why? I’m the president. I want to protect the women of our country,” Trump said to loud applause.

The former president added, “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them, I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in, I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles — and lots of other things.”

With less than a week until Election Day, both candidates are working to sway undecided voters and make their final pitches in their bid for the White House.

Trump made the comments about protecting women in Wisconsin, a battleground state where Harris narrowly leads, according to an analysis of the latest polls by ABC News’ 538. Both candidates are working to appeal to women in a year that abortion is a key voter issue.

Polling shows that Harris leads Trump by 9 points (56% to 42%) among women, according to a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Harris quickly pounced on Trump’s remarks, saying in a statement she posted Wednesday night on social media, “Donald Trump thinks he should get to make decisions about what you do with your body. Whether you like it or not.”

Sarafina Chitika, Harris’ campaign spokesperson, also took to social media, posting, “Donald Trump thinks he knows better than the women of America. To him, our choices don’t matter, our decisions are his to control, and he’s going to ban abortion nationwide whether we like it or not.”

On Thursday, Harris continued to blast Trump’s comments.

“This is just the latest on a series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency, whether he has said — as he has — that women should be punished for their choices, whether he has talked about his pride in taking away a fundamental right from women, whether it be how he has actually created a situation in America where now 1 in 3 women lives in a Trump abortion ban state and has legal restrictions on the right she rightly should have to make decisions about her own body,” Harris said.

Harris added, “Each day, I think there are also indications that we are receiving from my opponent that verify, validate and reinforce the fact that he’s not going to be fighting for women’s reproductive rights, he does not prioritize the freedom of women and the intelligence of women to make decisions about their own lives and bodies.”

Trump showed up to Wednesday’s Wisconsin rally in a garbage truck bearing his name on the side and wearing a fluorescent-orange vest, like those worn by sanitation workers, to make a point about President Joe Biden’s remarks at a campaign call this week during which he seemed to link Trump supporters and “garbage.”

Biden and the White House tried to clarify his remarks, saying he was specifically referring to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday.

Trump and other Republican leaders pounced on Biden’s comment, claiming they believed that Biden was talking about all “Trump supporters” rather than a specific “Trump supporter’s” relationship to garbage.

Earlier this week, Nikki Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration, said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier that she believes the former president is the best choice for the nation’s economy, national security and for her own family.

“With Donald Trump we know what we’re going to get. We lived the economy under Donald Trump. We know how strong he was on the border. We know how energy dominant we were, and then we also know what our national security looked like,” Haley said in the interview, which aired Tuesday.

Haley cautioned the Trump campaign to remain disciplined and focused on the issues.

“This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,” Haley said. “This is not a time to get overly masculine with this bromance thing they’ve got going. Fifty-three percent of the electorate are women. Women will vote. They care about how they are being talked to and they care about the issues.”

Trump voiced his comments about protecting women the following day, which was also about six months after a New York jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation in a civil case brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, who claimed Trump sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.

The jury awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in the lawsuit. The panel found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her, and awarded damages of $2 million in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages for battery. The jury also awarded $1 million in damages: $1.7 million for reputation repair and $280,000 in punitive damages, for defamation.

Trump has denied the accusations leveled against him by Carroll.

In May, Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony counts related to a 2016 hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her silent about an affair, marking the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been convicted on criminal charges. During the trial, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified that he made the hush-money payments to Daniels on behalf of Trump to boost Trump’s electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was caught on a hot mic boasting to former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about how he grabbed women by the genitals. Trump later dismissed his remarks as “locker room banter.”

ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.