By WILL WEISSERT and COLLEEN LONG

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women “whether they like it or not” shows that the Republican presidential candidate does not understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”

“By the way, I think it’s offensive to everyone,” Harris said before spending the day campaigning in the western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.

Trump’s comments come as he has struggled to connect with female voters and as Harris courts women of both parties with a message focused on freedom. She is advocating that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is elected, there will be more restrictions.

Trump appointed three of the US Supreme Court justices who formed the conservative majority that overturned the federal right to abortion. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreadshas begun to state at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and make sure they are not “thinking about abortion.”

At a rally Wednesday night near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told supporters that his advisers had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was “inappropriate.”

He then added a new piece to the protective line. He said he told his assistants: “Well, I’ll do it whether the women like it or not. “I’m going to protect them.”

Harris said the comment was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump.

“This is just the latest in a long series of revelations from the former president about how he thinks about women and their agency,” she said.

Trump’s comments increased criticism between the campaigns as both compete for female voters, who typically make up the majority of the electorate. Harris’ replacement, Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman, said in an interview with “The View” that Trump never surrounds himself with “strong, intelligent women.”

Cuban’s comment drew swift rebukes from women involved in Trump’s political operation, with his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, saying in a rare social media post that she was “proud to lead this campaign.” Campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt also attacked Cuban, saying he had “insinuated that women who support Trump are ‘weak and stupid.’”

More broadly, Trump and Republicans have struggled over how to talk about abortion rights, particularly as women across the country struggle to obtain adequate health care due to abortion restrictions that have had implications far beyond the ability to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Triumph has given contradictory answers about his position on abortion, at times saying that women should be punished for having abortions and showing the judges he appointed. During his successful 2016 campaign, he told voters that if elected, he would appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade and said he was “pro-life.”

But in recent weeks he has vowed to veto a national ban on abortion, after repeatedly refusing to make such a promise. He said states should regulate care and said some laws were “too strict.”

Since 2022, the patchwork of state abortion laws has created unequal health care. Some women have died. Others have bled in emergency room parking lots or became seriously ill with sepsis when doctors in states with strict abortion bans send pregnant women away until they are sick enough to require medical attention. That includes women who never intended to terminate their pregnancies. Both infant and maternal mortality have increased.

Harris’ campaign has seized on Trump’s remarks about women. In a campaign ad, a woman who became seriously ill with sepsis after a pregnancy complication stands in front of a mirror looking at a large scar on her abdomen, while audio of Trump’s comments about protecting women plays.

Harris hopes abortion will be a strong motivator for women at the polls.

So far in early voting, 1.2 million more women than men have voted in the seven battleground states, according to data from analytics firm TargetSmart.

That does not necessarily translate into Democratic gains. But in the 2020 presidential election, there was a 9 percentage point difference between men and women in support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, according to AP Votea survey of more than 110,000 voters.

The Democratic candidacy was supported by 55% of women and 46% of men. That was essentially unchanged from the 2018 midterms, when VoteCast found a 10-point gender gap, with 58% of women and 48% of men backing Democrats in congressional elections.