Donald Trump has sought to explain his jab this week at fellow GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and other women by saying some of his comments are made as “an entertainer.”
“Many of those comments are made as an entertainer, because I did ‘The Apprentice,’ it was one of the top shows on television,” Trump said Thursday night on Fox News’s “On The Record.”
{mosads}Trump initially reiterated on the program that he was “talking about [her] persona” to explain his remark on Fiorina’s “face,” amid taking shots at her business record on Fox.
Trump then alluded to Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s reference during the first GOP debate last month to his previous comments on women’s appearances.
“This is nothing new, because a colleague of yours mentioned something during the last debates, so this is nothing new,” Trump told host Greta Van Susteren. “And yet I’m leading with women.
“Some comments are made as an entertainer, and as everybody said, as an entertainer, it’s a much different ball game,” Trump said. “So what can I say? I’m leading with the evangelicals, I’m leading with women.”
The celebrity real estate tycoon faced a firestorm of criticism from several other presidential candidates on Thursday for his remark quoted in a Rolling Stone article published this week.
“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” Trump said.
Trump called into several television programs on Thursday, acknowledging the remarks were likely his but claiming that he was talking about Fiorina’s “persona.”
Paul Solotaroff, a contributor to Rolling Stone who wrote the story, explained during an interview Thursday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that Trump was excited after a rally when he made the remark, watching a newscast.
“I don’t know, I went to the Yale School of Drama, and I thought I knew what ‘persona’ meant, perhaps it has a broader application than they taught us,” Solotaroff said, adding, “He was not talking about her persona.”