
He just cannot let go. Speaking to the NRA, Donald Trump made clear that his contention from the 2016 campaign — that a woman simply cannot, and should not ever, be president — remains unchanged.

Donald Trump lost the popular vote to a woman.

This is a difficult fact for him to accept, as evidenced by his constant harping on the 2016 election results and most recent habit of handing out electoral college maps to reporters.

Speaking at the NRA conference (as the first president to do so since Ronald Reagan), Trump demeaned Senator Elizabeth Warren and the very notion that a woman would try to be president:


TRUMP: You're not gonna be wasting your time. You'll have plenty of those Democrats coming over and you're gonna say, no, sir, no thank you. No, MA'AM. It may be Pocahontas. Remember that. And she is not big for the NRA, that I can tell you.

Trump's jab at Warren as "Pocahontas" is tired, juvenile, and racist. But the part of his riff about Democrats who would ostensibly seek the NRA's support in 2020 (an unlikely scenario) that has gotten less attention were his words (and how he said them) that came just before: "You'll have plenty of those Democrats coming over and you're gonna say, no, sir, no thank you. No, ma'am."

It is a remark reminiscent of words he spoke during the campaign, with members of the military seated behind him:

Trump, standing in front of Medal of Honor recipients: “to think of HER — being their boss? I don’t think so…I know what they’re thinking.” pic.twitter.com/BPXLnwHxo5 — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) November 4, 2016

Trump still cannot get beyond the notion that a woman would be president. To Trump, it is unfathomable. But the resistance disagrees.