--- title: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Feud On 'Woman Card' Criticism description: Republican Donald Trump doubled down Wednesday on his argument that Hillary Clinton is "playing the woman card" with her candidacy canonical: https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-27T15:57:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:50:18.109Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump and Clinton Battle Over 'Woman Card' Criticism og:description: Trump says Clinton is playing a 'woman card' and Clinton asks to be dealt in og:url: https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36038e76f5622b61/698890dfe20a8764f6a90975/woman-card-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4052 og:image:height: 2279 og:image:alt: US-VOTE-ELECTION og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump and Clinton Battle Over 'Woman Card' Criticism twitter:description: Trump says Clinton is playing a 'woman card' and Clinton asks to be dealt in twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36038e76f5622b61/698890dfe20a8764f6a90975/woman-card-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump and Clinton Battle Over 'Woman Card' Criticism > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=6d76313f-4a59-436b-8058-db75123e4217&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 2016 Time 100 Gala: Donald Trump on the Red Carpet [Watch (HLS stream): 2016 Time 100 Gala: Donald Trump on the Red Carpet](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YP93aLhr.m3u8) (0:50)  _Published 2016-04-27. Donald Trump on the red carpet at the 2016 Time 100 Gala: "Nobody has told me to act more presidential."_  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Apr 27, 2016 3:57 PM UTC  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Apr 27, 2016 3:57 PM UTC Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump doubled down Wednesday on his argument that Hillary Clinton is “playing the woman card” with her candidacy and criticized her for “shouting” when she fired back at him in her victory speech Tuesday. “Mr. Trump accused me of playing the, quote, ‘woman card,'” Clinton said at a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday after [winning four of the five contests](http://time.com/4308721/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-atlantic-primary-sweep/?xid=homepage) in the Northeast. “Well, if fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the women’s card, then deal me in.” “I think the only card she has is the women’s card,” Trump said later at his own rally in New York after a [sweeping victory](http://time.com/4308834/donald-trump-pennsylvania-maryland-primary-results-never-trump/?xid=homepage). “Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she would get 5% of the vote.” Clinton’s campaign followed up on Wednesday by [releasing an online ad](https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/725171200100433920) with her “deal me in” message, while in morning interviews, Trump repeated his argument that Clinton wouldn’t have made it as far in the campaign as a man. The feud comes as both frontrunners are beginning to shift their focus to an increasingly likely general election matchup. Clinton has [taken to using](http://time.com/4290427/hillary-clinton-equal-pay-day/) the “deal me in” line throughout the campaign to respond to similar criticism from Trump and other candidates. “Of course she’s going to play the woman card, that’s what she does,” former Republican candidate [Carly Fiorina said in December](http://video.foxnews.com/v/4677511598001/fiorina-never-going-to-ask-for-support-because-im-a-woman/?playlist%5Fid=930909787001#sp=show-clips). “I’m never going to ask for people’s support because I’m a woman.” On Wednesday, Trump said he would do well among women voters in a general election against Clinton. “Well I haven’t quite recovered—it’s early in the morning—from her shouting that message,” Trump said Wednesday [on MSNBC](http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/trump-on-rivals-clinton-and-his-campaign-674589763624). “And I know a lot of people would say you can’t say that about a woman because of course a woman doesn’t shout, but the way she shouted that message was not—oh, I just—that’s the way she said it, and it’s—I guess I’ll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months.” Asked if Democrat Bernie Sanders also shouts his message, Trump said the Vermont Senator “sends a message that’s interesting” and said he would take up some of Sanders’s attacks against Clinton. “When he said ‘[bad judgment](http://time.com/4287756/bernie-sanders-clinton-judgment/),’ I said sound bite,” Trump said. “She is a woman, she is playing the woman card left and right. She didn’t play it last time with Obama, but she’s playing it much harder this time, and she will be called on it,” Trump [said on CNN](https://twitter.com/NewDay/status/725272043113959425) on Wednesday. “If she didn’t, she would do very poorly.” “If she were a man, and she was the way she is, she would get virtually no votes.” “It’s not sexist. It’s true. Just a very, very true statement. If she were a man she’d get 5%,” he [said on _Good Morning America_](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/state-sweep-trump-turns-attention-clinton/story?id=38699492) on Wednesday. “Women don’t like Hillary, and it’s very interesting, and if you noticed, I did very well last night with the women,” Meanwhile, many women took to social media using the hashtag [#womancard](https://twitter.com/hashtag/WomanCard?src=hash) to fight back against the suggestion that Clinton would be less successful as a male candidate. ## Transcript We have had no pressure to act more presidential. Look, we started off with 17 people, all very prominent, mostly senators and governors. And now we're really way ahead of a couple left. And it shouldn't even be a couple, they should drop out because frankly they have no path to victory. So, no, nobody's told me to act more presidential that I can tell you. I think we've gotta keep it the way it is, at least for a while. So you don't, sorry. At least for a while. So you don't plan on changing anything? No, not at all. We have a tremendously successful campaign. It's being talked about all over the world. We've beaten governors, senators, people with great talent, and Great intellect. We've beaten them all and here we are, at Time, so we're very happy about it. No, we're doing really well. It's been a great campaign. Thank you very much. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/"},"headline":"Trump and Clinton Battle Over 'Woman Card' Criticism","datePublished":"2016-04-27T15:57:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:50:18.109Z","description":"Trump says Clinton is playing a 'woman card' and Clinton asks to be dealt in","url":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36038e76f5622b61/698890dfe20a8764f6a90975/woman-card-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36038e76f5622b61/698890dfe20a8764f6a90975/woman-card-clinton.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-VOTE-ELECTION","caption":"US-VOTE-ELECTION","creditText":"Eduardo Munoz Alvarez —AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/","name":"Trump and Clinton Battle Over 'Woman Card' Criticism"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Trump, Clinton and the Woman Card","description":"Donald Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton relies on the","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/pmBAMZYN/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-04-27T14:19:42.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pmBAMZYN.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/","duration":"PT35S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"2016 Time 100 Gala: Donald Trump on the Red Carpet","description":"Donald Trump on the red carpet at the 2016 Time 100 Gala: \"Nobody has told me to act more presidential.\"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/YP93aLhr/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-04-27T00:43:22.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YP93aLhr.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/","duration":"PT50S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4309313/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-woman-card-general-election/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```