After a relatively staid speech about some of Donald Trump’s favorite subjects — dissing President Obama, boycotting Oreos and building ice rinks — the GOP frontrunner’s appearance at the centrist No Labels convention went predictably off the rails when the floor was opened up for questions.
At “Problem Solvers” event in New Hampshire Monday sponsored by the group No Labels — which emphasizes compromise and bipartisan solutions — attendees grilled Trump about the Tea Party and on whether he was a friend to women. Trump also asked a questioner wearing a Harvard shirt who asked about South Korea if he was South Korean. The young man was born in Texas.
On the first matter, a woman asked Trump about the House Freedom Caucus, “or a.k.a. the Tea Party,” she said.
“I love the Tea Party, I do,” Trump said, before she could finish her question. “I’ll tell you about the Tea Party, these are people, in all fairness, these are people that love this country. They do love this country and they want the country to be great.”
She pressed Trump further, asking about Tea Party lawmakers’ effort to shutdown the government over Planned Parenthood funding.
“But that’s their point of view,” Trump said, as the woman continued to question him about it. “They don’t want Planned Parenthood funded. I think a lot of people understand that, including me.”
The audience began booing as Trump moved on to the next question.
Then another woman was handed the microphone, and she challenged Trump, “I don’t think you’re a friend to women.”
Before she finished her question, Trump cut the young woman off and said, “I knew I shouldn’t have picked her.”
“Let me give you that answer right now,” Trump continued. “I respect women incredibly.”
He went on to cite his employment of women, and relationship with his daughter, his wife and his mother.
“I respect women and I am going to take care women,” Trump said, as he pivoted toward former Gov. Jeb Bush’s comments suggesting too much federal money went to women’s health.
Before he could move on, the young woman asked a follow up: “I want to be paid the same as a man, and I think you understand that. So if you become president, will a woman make the same as a man and do I get to choose what I do with my body?”
“You’re going to make the same if you do as good a job and I happen to be pro-life,” Trump said.
A young man in a Harvard sweatshirt then asked Trump about comments he made about South Korea earlier this summer.
“Are you from South Korea?” Trump interjected.
“I was born in Texas and raised in Colorado,” the young man replied.
