Nikki Haley Suggests Trump, JD Vance ‘Change the Way They Speak About Women’ 

Nikki Haley has advised Donald Trump and JD Vance to change the way they speak about women. During a sit-down media interview, the former Republican Presidential challenger said the GOP contenders must stop calling Vice President Kamala Harris dumb because she didn’t get this far in life by accident and has had a long career as an attorney and a leader. Haley stated that calling accomplished female politicians “dumb” gets women’s backs up, including Republican women. Ms. Haley told her fellow Republicans to stick to the policies, adding, “That’s how we can win.”

In a second interview, the former South Carolina Governor made similar remarks, focusing on JD Vance and his comments about the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. Haley said Vance sounded “disoriented and disturbed” and had offended countless women. A clip recently resurfaced of Mr. Vance claiming Weingarten had no children and, therefore, should not be allowed to “brainwash and destroy” American kids. Like Kamala Harris, however, Ms. Weingarten is a stepmom. On Twitter, she hit back at the Republican, saying his remarks were “sad and insulting to millions of modern families.”

Haley is not the first to caution Trump and Vance about their rhetoric on women and warn them to focus on Harris’s political record rather than her gender or race. In July, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Richard Hudson told GOP colleagues in a closed-door Washington meeting that Republicans – including Mr. Trump – must not comment on Harris’s personal characteristics. “Her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever,” he said.

The words appeared to fall on deaf ears, however, and Trump soon afterward told a Chicago audience that Harris was not black but had previously identified as “an Indian.” The former President also shared sexualized social media posts about Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was widely condemned for doing so.

John Geer, a political expert and professor at Vanderbilt University, said Trump doesn’t appear to accept that such rhetoric is off-putting for millions of people and will likely alienate black, female, and moderate voters.