Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reportedly called his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris a “bitch” repeatedly, per reporting from the New York Times based on two people who heard the remark on different occasions. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung denied the remarks, saying, “That is not language President Trump has used to describe Kamala” and it’s “not how the campaign would characterize her.”
Yet, Trump has used this gendered slur to talk about women, or benefited from its use, throughout his career. And, he didn’t shy away from the language in 2016 when running against Hillary Clinton—lest we all remember the “TRUMP THAT BITCH” T-shirts that filled his rallies. (The phrase also graced bumper stickers, yard signs, and bottles of hot sauce.)
At a New Hampshire rally during that campaign, someone in the crowd held up a “TRUMP THAT BITCH” bumper sticker, and the then-candidate appeared to spot it, stopping Trump in the middle of his speech.
“This could only happen at a Trump rally,” he said after pointing, smiling, and laughing at the attendee. Then, after mentioning the pushback he received after not correcting a town hall attendee who insisted that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, Trump points again at the man in the crowd.
“Sir, you’re reprimanded, okay?” he said before throwing his arm in the air in a brushing-it-off motion. “But, we’re not throwing him out, right folks?”
While there is no conclusive history of Trump’s usage of the misogynistic insult, he’s been reportedly employing it for a while now.
In the now infamous Access Hollywood tape from 2005, where Trump said he could grab women “by the pussy” and “do anything” to them because he was a “star,” he also claimed he tried to sleep with a married woman to no avail, which disappointed him.
“I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there,” Trump said of the woman, adding, “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”
A year later in 2006, Trump said he wished then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a “bitch,” according to reporting from the New York Daily News at the time and CNN’s fact check in 2016.
“I wish she was a bitch. I don’t care if she’s a lovely woman,” Trump said. “I want somebody that can go and make deals. She goes to countries, but nothing ever happens. Except sound bites.”
In his last season hosting The Celebrity Apprentice before running for president, Trump shared a post from a viewer on Twitter, now X, that encouraged him to oust former Miss USA winner Kenya Moore. “Get rid of @KenyaMoore already @realDonaldTrump.” the post reads. “She’s a bitch no matter who she’s with.”
While in office, Trump reportedly called then-German chancellor Angela Merkel “that bitch” during an Oval Office meeting about NATO and the US relationship with Germany, per Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s 2021 book I Alone Can Fix It. A Trump spokesperson at the time denied that the president had made these remarks.
And, in the 2005 biographical book The Art of Being the Donald, Trump said that his favorite part of the movie Pulp Fiction was when Samuel L. Jackson’s character “has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up.” Trump then quotes the lines, “Tell that bitch to be cool! Say ‘bitch be cool’!”
Trump also has a fondness for calling men who he thinks wronged him a “son of a bitch,” hurling the phrase at a Florida man who allegedly installed his rally mic poorly, NFL players protesting racism, NBC’s Chuck Todd, someone who might have been trying to rip him off when buying a plane, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and President Joe Biden, to name a few.
The news that Trump reportedly called Harris a “bitch” multiple times comes alongside a slew of insults the Republican nominee has used against his opponent. Harris “can’t do an interview,” he claimed, because she is “barely competent.” “She’s not smart enough” to do a news conference, Trump has said.
And, pulling out one of his go-to phrases against both Hillary Clinton and the vice president, Trump told FOX & Friends on Wednesday that he’ll be debating Harris at some point, adding that he “heard she’s sort of a nasty person but not a good debater.”
