Trump’s ‘nasty woman’ remark about Clinton could be trouble | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Elections are about addition, not subtraction. You want to add to your support, not subtract.

But in just four words Wednesday night, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump might have made the kind of mathematical error that can lose elections.

“Such a nasty woman,” he said of Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during their final debate when she tossed off a one-liner about his ability to avoid paying federal income taxes.

“My Social Security payroll contribution will go up, as will Donald’s, assuming he can’t figure out how to get out of it,” Clinton said at one point. “But what we want to do is to replenish the Social Security trust fund. . . . ”

“Such a nasty woman,” Trump interjected.

Social media jumped on it. Not long after the debate concluded, Planned Parenthood began offering T-shirts with “nasty woman” emblazoned on them as a fundraising tool.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Trump. It follows on the heels of his recent imbroglio over an old “hot mic” recording of him making salacious remarks about women and boasting of the sexual liberties he takes. He apologized, and dismissed it as “locker room talk.”

But accounts from several women who claimed he had groped them over the years followed.

Amid all tumult, with less than three weeks remaining before Election Day, the gender gap in the race has widened to 15 points in Clinton’s favor in battleground states, according to a recent CBS News poll.

Trump needs to expand his base beyond his core support. Women were one potential bloc. Like a lot of voters, many are wary of both candidates. Both are extremely unpopular.

Issues related to women figured in a lot of the talk at the debate. Trump repeated a frequent line, “Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Nobody.”

But in defending himself against some of the claims against him, he attacked the women making them.

“These women. . . . I think they want either fame or her campaign did it,” he said, accusing Clinton of arranging their public statements.

“He did an extremely good job of reinforcing his base, but nothing to add to his voter pool,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “No question he was more disciplined, more measured, and didn’t go for the bait every time that Hillary offered it up.”

Trump put Clinton on the defensive over the Clinton Foundation, a charitable group that works on AIDS and other global health issues. He criticized her for the foundation’s acceptance of donations from countries such as Saudi Arabia and others, which have poor human rights records for their treatment of women or gays.

“All of these countries,” Trump said. “You talk about women and women’s rights? So these are people that push gays . . . off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly. And yet you take their money. So I’d like to ask you right now, why don’t you give back the money that you’ve taken from certain countries that treat certain groups of people so horribly?”

Clinton never answered the question, pivoting instead to praise the work of the foundation.

“She clobbered him on his disrespect for women, but she handled the question about the Clinton Foundation poorly,” said Democratic strategist Marc Farinella.

Women were a centerpiece when both candidates talked about Supreme Court candidates and Roe v. Wade, the federal court ruling legalizing abortion. Trump said he would appoint judges who would overturn it. Clinton said she would stand up for it.

She also noted that during the campaign, Trump “said women should be punished, that there should be some form of punishment for women who obtain abortions. And I could just not be more opposed to that kind of thinking.”

During a town hall meeting with voters in March, Trump said women should face “some sort of punishment” if abortion became illegal.

Debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News also asked Clinton why, when she was a Democratic senator from New York, she opposed a ban on late-term abortions.

“I have met with women who toward the end of their pregnancy get the worst news one could get, that their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term or that something terrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy,” she said. “I do not think the United States government should be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions.”

“I think it’s terrible,” Trump said when asked to respond. “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. . . . That’s not acceptable.

Clinton countered that “using that kind of scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate. . . . This is one of the worst possible choices that any woman and her family has to make.”

Republican strategist Kim Alfano said Trump had offered strong points during the discussion about abortion.

“But it was so early in the evening I think it got lost,” she said. “Too substantive to be the sound bites in the news. That, along with guns, didn’t help him with suburban women, whom he needs.”

Lesley Clark contributed to this article.