Trump has been asking his close allies why women don’t like him, report says

Kamala Harris is leading among likely women voters by 14 points, one recent national poll shows

Donald Trump has been asking why women don’t like him, a new CNN report reveals.

Trump has called up close allies to ask why women don’t like him, the outlet reports, citing three anonymous sources familiar with the conversations. The former president “thinks women want someone who will keep them safe, keep their children safe,” one of three sources told CNN.

National polls indicate Kamala Harris is winning over more women than the former president. The latest ABC News/Ipsos poll indicates Harris leads by 14 points among women likely to vote, while Trump leads among likely male voters by 6 points.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, told The Independent that the former president is “loved by millions of women across the country, and those who know him personally, myself included, will tell you he’s supportive, generous, and kind” when reached for comment.

“The media’s negative portrayal of President Trump and his treatment of women is entirely false,” Leavitt said.

Donald Trump speaks in Michigan on Friday. The former president has asked close allies why women don’t like him in the lead-up to Election Day, a new report reveals (AP)

Trump also launched a social media rant on Thursday after billionaire Mark Cuban – a staunch supporter of Harris – said the former president doesn’t surround himself with “strong, intelligent women.”

The former president called on all “women in general” to “be very angry” at Cuban’s words.

“Mark Cuban, a really dumb guy, who thinks he’s ‘hot stuff’ but he’s absolutely nothing, is now out there saying that I don’t surround myself with strong women,” Trump wrote on X. “Actually, he is very wrong, I surround myself with the strongest of women - With the understanding that ALL women are great, whether strong or not strong.”

“I may, in fact, be surrounded by the strongest women in the World, including Heads of Countries, who make Mark look like a ‘baby,’” he added. “All strong women, and women in general, should be very angry about this weak man’s statement.”

Cuban later apologized for the remark.

“When I said this during the interview, I didn’t get it out exactly the way I thought I did,” he wrote on X. “So I apologize to anyone who felt slighted or upset by my response. As I said, it wasn’t about trump voters, supporters or employees.  Current or former.”

With Election Day less than a week away, Harris is just 1.2 points ahead of Trump, according to the latest average of national polls. The two candidates are also neck-and-neck in all seven key swing states, indicating Tuesday will be a nail-biter for both campaigns.

The Democrats have been campaigning on the issue of abortion rights, which Trump has boasted about curtailing after he appointed three of the conservative Supreme Court justices who overthrew Roe v Wade in 2022.

They have also been highlighting sexist remarks Trump has been making for years, notably in the Access Hollywood tape which became public in 2016, in which he was recorded on a hot mic talking about sexually harassing women. He and his supporters have claimed the comments should not be taken literally but constituted “locker room talk.”

In 2023 a jury in a civil case in New York found that Trump had sexually assaulted and repeatedly defamed a magazine columnist, E Jean Carroll, in the mid-1990s.

On the campaign trail this year Trump has said he wants to be a “protector’ of women, “whether the women want it or not.”

Over the years he has insulted or made threatening comments about high profile women including Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Taylor Swift, former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, TV presenters Mika Brzezinksi and Megyn Kelly, adult film star Stormy Daniels, entertainers Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell, congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Heidi Cruz, wife of then Republican primary rival Ted Cruz.