Donald Trump's tilt at White House embroiled in misogyny row over Megyn Kelly 'blood' line

Billionaire Republican hopeful races to praise 'killer' businesswomen

Mr Trump at the debate in Ohio (Reuters)

The presidential candidate most prone to cause maximum damage to himself and not worry about it – that would be Donald Trump – was on the defence this weekend. Desperate to correct any impression of misogyny caused by his remarks about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, he insisted that he had great relationships with women, especially women in business, calling them “phenomenal” and “killers”.

That’s not to say that The Donald was in apologetic mode. Asked by ABC News whether he had gone too far in his latest politically incorrect outburst towards Ms Kelly – who had led the questioning in last Thursday’s primary debate – he said, “No, not at all.”

But Mr Trump seems to be aware, at least, that his tangling with Ms Kelly may not exactly be helping his campaign. The tension began during the debate and continued after, when he called her a “bimbo”, until finally on Friday he told CNN that she had been so angry on set, “you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

Mr Trump has said he was unfairly treated by Ms Kelly, who challenged him during the debate over allegedly calling women at different times “fat pigs”, “slobs” and “disgusting animals”. But the remark to CNN on Friday, widely interpreted as suggesting the anchor was menstruating, may threaten him even more than the fall-out from past remarks about Mexican immigrants and Senator John McCain.

In short order over the weekend, Mr Trump was “disinvited” from a gathering of conservatives in Atlanta where he was to have been a keynote speaker, then lost a top campaign aide, Roger Stone, who apparently decided the comment to CNN was one outrage too many. It goes almost without saying that Mr Trump has a different version of events: he said he fired Mr Stone.

Yet a letter from Mr Stone to the candidate suggests he did the firing. “Controversies involving personalities and provocative media fights have reached such a high volume that it has distracted attention from your platform and overwhelmed your core message,” it said. “With this current direction of the candidacy, I no longer can remain involved in your campaign.”

There has been visible angst in the Republican Party that last Thursday’s debate, watched by a record 24 million people, may have angered women in general, not just because of Mr Trump’s comments but also because of many minutes spent outlining extreme positions on denying access to abortion even, in the words of some of the all-male line-up of candidates, when the life of the mother is at risk.

“I’ve had such an amazing relationship with women in business,” Mr Trump said on ABC’s Sunday morning politics show This Week. “They are amazing executives. They are killers. They are phenomenal.” Among those who had scolded him for his remarks about Ms Kelly were rivals who polls say continue to trail him in the Republican nomination race.

“They were completely inappropriate and offensive,” Carly Fiorina, the only woman among the 17 Republican hopefuls, told CNN. Ms Fiorina had not been on stage at the main debate because of her low poll ratings.

Jeb Bush, addressing about 1,000 conservative activists at the RedState conference from which Mr Trump had been excluded, suggested the Republican Party risked losing the White House if it alienated women. “Do we want to win? Do we want to insult 53 per cent of our voters?” he asked.