CNN Asks Eric Cantor 'Do You Not Know How to Talk to Women, Sir?'
Touting the "huge problem" the GOP has with women voters, CNN dredged
up Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" remark from last year and asked
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor point-blank "Do you not know how to
talk to women, sir?"
The obnoxious question came from Capitol Hill correspondent Dana Bash,
who challenged Cantor's point that GOP policies will appeal to both men
and women. "But they haven't," she insisted.
[Video below. Audio here.]
"[I]s there a problem with men in the Republican party, your rank and
file, who don't know how to communicate to reach female voters?" Bash
continued. She highlighted that the "gender gap" remains "a huge
problem" with Republicans and noted that "Mitt Romney lost with the
women vote I believe by about 11 percent."
What Bash ignored was that Mitt Romney actually won the vote of married
women by seven points and white women by 14 percent, according to CNN's 2012 exit polls.
Romney lost by a huge margin among unmarried women and black and Latino
women, which might denote more of a problem among minority voters and
unmarried women than among women in general.
Regardless, Wolf Blitzer brought up Romney's "binders full of women"
comment as a symptom of the party's female problem. "Binders full of
women obviously caused him some grief out there. How serious is this
gender gap problem for the Republicans right now?" Blitzer asked.
And the same Dana Bash that reported the GOP's "huge problem" with women laughed hysterically in 2010 when former Senator Scott Brown's daughters were called "prostitutes."
Below is a transcript of the segment, which aired on CNN Newsroom on December 5 at 1:13 p.m. EST:
[1:13]
WOLF BLITZER: So you remember Mitt Romney and his statement about
so-called binders full of women? Or a congressman's comment about rape
that probably cost him an election? We're going to tell you what
Republicans are now doing to prevent those kinds of gaffes.
(...)
BLITZER: Republican candidates are getting schooled about how to run
against women in the upcoming midterm elections. The story was first
reported by Politico. The sessions are designed to prevent gaffes like
the ones that plagued some Republicans in 2012. Former congressman Todd
Akin, a prime example. Remember this comment on abortion during his run
for the U.S. Senate?
(Video Clip)
HOST: What about in the case of rape? Should it be legal or not?
Rep. TODD AKIN (R-Mo.): Well, you know, people always want to try and
make that as one of those things, how do you slice this particularly
tough sort of ethical question. It seems to me, first of all, from what I
understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape,
the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But
let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should
be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be in the rapist and not
attacking the child.
(End Video Clip)
BLITZER: Dana Bash is joining us now from Capitol Hill. Dana, even the
House Speaker John Boehner said today that Republicans need to do a
whole lot better on this front. Listen to what he said.
(Video Clip)
Rep. JOHN BOEHNER (R-Ohio): Trying to get them to be a little more
sensitive, you know? You look around the Congress, there are a lot more
females in the Democrat Caucus than the Republican Caucus. Some of our
members just aren't as sensitive as they ought to be.
(End Video Clip)
BLITZER: Alright so Dana so what are you hearing on the Hill about these tutoring sessions?
BASH: Well, what we're told is that what they're doing over at the NRCC,
which the political arm of the Republican party and the House that
tries to get members elected, is they're doing broad tutorials, media
training for all of their candidates, which is not new. Both parties do
that. But as part of those tutorials they are being much more focused on
avoiding the gaffes like you just played from Todd Akin. On explaining
how to, when you're asked about abortion, when you're asked about
subjects that certainly are sensitive and are prone to foot-in-mouth
moments to not answer those the way Todd Akin did. But then also more
broadly, to talk more in a way for Republicans, to talk more in a way
that's relatable to women voters, to talk about themselves as husbands,
as fathers and things like that. And in fact, this is something that I
had the chance to talk to the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor about
earlier today, about what he thinks the issue is. Listen to what he
said.
(Video Clip)
BASH: (on camera) Do you not know how to talk to women, sir?
Rep. ERIC CANTOR (R-Va.): We have any number of Republican women in our conference who are real leaders on all kinds of issues.
BASH: But -- is there a problem with men in the Republican party, your
rank and file, who don't know how to communicate to reach female voters?
CANTOR: It is our policies that are going to appeal to both female and male voters.
BASH: But they haven't.
CANTOR: What we're talking about health care, right now, our health care starts with people and patients.
BASH: There are times when you hear Republican candidates, even
Republican members, talk about rape, talk about things that I know that
you would rather them not talk about message-wise, language-wise, are
you trying to put a stop to that?
CANTOR: Again, Dana, I would say that our policies, the underlying
prescriptions that we have for people is what most are concerned about,
men and women.
(End Video Clip)
BASH: Now Wolf, one of the big problems Republicans across the board
admit that they have in reaching female voters is that they simply don't
have that many female candidates, female representatives. Right now, in
the House majority, this is a great example, 232 Republicans, a really
big number, of those 232 Republicans, 19 are women. Only 19 female
Republicans in the House of Representatives. That is another thing that
they're really trying to change inside the House Republican leadership.
BLITZER: I remember this comment from Mitt Romney during the campaign
last year, also agitated a lot of folks, especially women. Listen to
this.
(Video Clip)
MITT ROMNEY, 2012 GOP presidential candidate: I said, well gosh, can't
we – can't we find some women that are also qualified? And so we took a
concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could
be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of
women's groups and said, can you help us find folks? And they brought us
whole binders full of women.
(End Video Clip)
BLITZER: Binders full of women obviously caused him some grief out
there. How serious is this gender gap problem for the Republicans right
now?
BASH: It's a huge problem. Mitt Romney lost with the women vote I
believe by about 11 percent, and it is certainly not new and not just
about Mitt Romney. It has been like that for Republicans for years. And
you talk to Democrats who are really, really trying to retake the House
and of course keep control of the Senate in this next election. Any time
a Republican says anything that can be used by Democrats as, you know, a
message about Republicans and their war on women, they take it and they
seize on it because the predisposition is already there in the
electorate to listen to something like Mitt Romney and saying binders of
women, and what he was trying to say, I tried really hard to hire women
and put women in my cabinet and business and it sort of is turned on
its head because of the way people perceive Republicans and women, and
that is the fundamental thing they're trying to change back as we
started this conversation in those media training sessions that House
Republicans are having.
— Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Matt Hadro on Twitter.
