Donald Trump Is Skipping the GOP Debate Because He Hates Women

By Jesse Berney, Rolling Stone

28 January 16

Trump's refusal to face Megyn Kelly again is in keeping with his outright hostility toward women

nless he changes his narrow mind in the next day and a half, Donald Trump won't be on the stage at Thursday night's final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses, because he hates women.

The petty, thin-skinned reality TV star turned presidential frontrunner (frontrunner, my god) is still pouting over a question Megyn Kelly asked him at him at another debate back in August. "You've called women you don't like 'fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,'" Kelly reminded him.

"Only Rosie O'Donnell," Trump joked. The audience ate it up, because the audience at a GOP primary debate is full of terrible people.

Kelly continued her litany of Trump's misogyny. "Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?"

Trump's answer doesn't particularly matter. He said something about how political correctness makes us "lose to China" and hey, he was just kidding anyway, and why was Kelly being so mean to him?

But after the debate, he went to war with Kelly, implying she was on her period (because of course he did), and demanding she not moderate another debate. He's retweeted followers calling Kelly a bimbo and worse. Just this week Trump called her a "lightweight."

In a rare show of journalistic standards, Fox News has made it clear candidates don't get to pick debate moderators, and Kelly will be asking questions Thursday. So Trump is picking up his ball and going home.

But Trump isn't skipping the debate because he's scared of Megyn Kelly. He's skipping the debate because he hates women.

Kelly isn't a good journalist, although she plays one on TV. Her stories are frequently racist, but she gets praise from liberal pundits for occasionally asking Republicans a tough question. But Trump doesn't actually mind hard questions. He knows whatever Palinesque nonsense he spins in response will fire up his base, who hates the media even more than they love their hero.

Trump frequently attacks reporters and media outlets that give him less than favorable coverage, but his reaction to Kelly's question has been unprecedented in its vitriol. It got so bad he had to negotiate an actual truce with Fox News head Roger Ailes, and he's since broken it multiple times. And now, just days before the Iowa caucuses, he's skipping a high-profile debate because he doesn't want to face her.

What was so different about Kelly's question from other rough coverage Trump has received? A woman asked him about his utter hatred of women, and for once, the truth may have actually stung him.

Donald Trump hates women. Kelly listed plenty of examples, but there are more.

"Look at that face!" Trump said of Carly Fiorina, the only woman running against him in the GOP primary. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president!" He makes jokes about fucking his own daughter. His misogyny is the stuff of legends and listicles.

Women are nothing but objects to Trump. Their value lies entirely in their faces and their bodies, and if they say or do something he doesn't like, he'll attack them as ugly.

Donald Trump is a sniveling little shit of a human being, a liar who believes his own lies, a willfully ignorant moron who honestly thinks he's a genius, a man completely bereft of ideas or beliefs who will say anything for money or power or his own personal amusement. He's racist and prepared to use the presidency to make his racism the law of the land.

But mostly, Trump is a sad schoolyard bully whose ludicrous self-image is built on attacking others. And women often get the worst of Trump's attacks. He may condescendingly claim to "cherish" women (gross, dude), but his refusal to face Kelly's questions again is just one more entry in a long list of weird, inappropriate, and outright hostile behavior toward women. He hates them.