Leaning into the controversy that he set off with his endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of preying on teenage girls, Donald Trump attacked Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday morning in explicitly sexist terms, tweeting that she “would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago” and, in a particularly pointed parenthetical, that she would “do anything for them.” The ferocity of the attack, which came after Gillibrand called for Trump’s resignation during a CNN interview, saying that he has “committed assault, according to these women, and those are very credible allegations of misconduct and criminal activity,” shocked Gillibrand’s Democratic colleagues, who quickly rallied around her.

“It took my breath away,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, adding that the comment was “grotesque.” Senator Richard Blumenthal called on Americans to “reject Trump’s sexist slurs,” and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the tweet “disgusting,” adding that everyone could see what he was trying to say. Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Trump of trying to “bully, intimidate and slut-shame” Gillibrand, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called the comments “far beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.” “It was a sexist smear attempting to silence my voice, and I will not be silenced on this issue,” Gillibrand said during a press conference just hours after the president’s tweet. “[And] neither will the women who stood up to the president yesterday.” (Republican Bob Corker simply turned a blind eye—“I don’t know that I want you to show it to me, I can’t respond if I don’t know anything about it,” he told a reporter.)

The series of condemnations seemed to fuel the right’s reaction, which coalesced around the idea that Gillibrand was reading sexism into a statement that contained none. Quoth zealous Trump pundit Bill Mitchell:

“Only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way,” was Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s terse assessment.

It’s somewhat of an understatement to say that the president is known for his freewheeling tweets, but Trump lobbed this particular firebomb into the middle of an uncomfortable reckoning regarding sexual harassment and assault that has emerged in nearly every facet of American life. Last week, two congressmen and one senator—one Republican and two Democrats—resigned over accusations of everything from paying off accusers to repeated groping, and reports indicate that up to 40 more congresspeople could potentially be outed as sexual abusers. Meanwhile, members of the Democratic Women’s Working Group have asked the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to conduct an investigation into allegations brought against Trump before he became president, and Trump’s own accusers have resurfaced, dragging the president’s alleged misconduct back into the spotlight.

In his rise from Wharton student to shoddy billionaire to president of America, Trump’s instinct to punch back “10 times harder” when attacked has largely worked in his favor. But in the current environment, wherein lesser charges are hastening the downfalls of a growing number of lawmakers and industry bigwigs, it has the potential to backfire. Worse, it could cost Trump crucial support among Republican women who, at least in Moore’s case, are proving less willing than Republican men to brush off allegations of sexual harassment and assault. “That ‘would do anything to get elected’ is fairly ominous—it can be taken in a way that is very suggestive, and I think that is obviously horrible,” Republican pollster Christine Matthews told The New York Times. “Having a president who attacks other women for how they look or suggests that they are sexually promiscuous or liars, it’s going to hurt the party over all.”