Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that the idea that he was referring to debate moderator Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycle was “fueled by the press” on Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today.”
Trump was asked about his remarks Kelly that during the debate “you can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever, but she was, in my opinion, she was off base.” Anchor Savannah Guthrie said that because Trump had been asked about the comments many times, she would try to attack it from a different angle, and asked Trump, “why should people give you the benefit of the doubt in this particular controversy, given your very long history of pretty personal, and pretty vitriolic, and sometimes very crass insults?”
Trump, answered, “Well, this wasn’t meant to be much of an insult. She asked me a question, it was an inappropriate question, it was a ridiculous question. Even the other candidates came up and said that was absolutely out of line. She asked me a question that was nasty, and I gave her a pretty tough answer. I mentioned something at that particular question, that was the Rosie O’Donnell mention, and the room broke out, it was the largest applause of the day by far, and she got very angry during this question because of that. Because she couldn’t even finish the rest of the question because the crowd went wild. And I — in discussing it later, I said blood was — she was so angry that blood was coming out of her eyes, blood was coming out of her — and then I — I didn’t even finish the answer because I wanted to get onto the next point. But I was referring to — if I finished it, I was going to say ears or nose. Because that’s a common statement, where blood is pouring out of your ears. It’s a very common statement. And then the next day this total lightweight from — Erick Erickson, I think his name is, a total lightweight, somebody that’s so many races, he’s a disgrace frankly, to conservatives, he figures he’ll get some publicity and he’ll disinvite me, which saved me a lot of fuel money. But what happened out at RedState, which is — was not even a big deal, but what happened out there is they had virtual riots. The people went nuts when they heard that I wasn’t coming.”
Trump added it would be “inappropriate,” if somebody did make a comment about a female journalist’s menstrual cycle, but he didn’t do that.
Trump was then asked what it meant to him and what it said about his reputation that so many people thought he was referring to Kelly’s menstrual cycle, he said, “It’s all fueled by the press, by you and the press. I mean it’s — you know, it’s ridiculous. Who would say such a thing? No, if I would have said that, it would have been inappropriate. The interesting thing is, I really said nothing, because I stopped, because I wanted to get onto jobs, or the whatever the next subject was.”
Guthrie then asked Trump about a tweet he re-posted calling Kelly a “bimbo,” and whether he agreed with it. He stated, “I thought the kind of questions she was asking me, were inappropriate and they were the questions that somebody — you could make the case. Look, look, I was not asked about jobs. I was not asked about nuclear. I was not asked about all of the — I wasn’t asked about things that other people were asked about. And despite that, almost every poll has me having won the debate. They said I won the debate, but I was given the worst answers — I was given the worst questions of anybody.”
The interview concluded with Guthrie asking about criticisms that he was more “bluster than detail,” Trump cut in to respond, “I’ll tell you what, Savannah. They had 24 million people watching. It was the largest in the history of Fox, and the largest in all of cable television history. 24 million people. If I wasn’t on the show, they would have had 2 million people watching, and they probably wouldn’t have had that many. So, you know, the other candidates are very lucky. Because at least people are watching what they’re saying as opposed to nobody caring.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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