Trump Got A Chance To Clarify A Sexist Remark. Instead, He Did This

Carly Fiorina is having a great night at the Republican presidential debate. It's her first time on the main stage (she was relegated to the "happy hour" debate last time around). She's been able to make her points clearly and calmly, and she hasn't gotten dragged into fights with any other candidates. Plus, she nailed her first big confrontation with Donald Trump — and made him look like a Mad Men character in the process. CNN moderator Jake Tapper asked Fiorina about a particularly nasty comment Trump made in a Rolling Stone interview last week. In the magazine, Trump said, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" Trump later backtracked and said he was talking about Fiorina's "persona," not her looks. Tapper flipped the question and asked Fiorina what she thought of Trump's persona. Fiorina's response was ice-cold: "It’s interesting to me that Mr. Trump said he heard Mr. Bush very clearly," Fiorina said about a back-and-forth between Trump and Jeb Bush. "Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said." Trump's response — which we can only assume he thought was nice — felt straight out of the 1950s. "I think she’s got a beautiful face," Trump said, "and I think she’s a beautiful woman."

Social-media commenters were fast to point out what was wrong with this — it's sexist, it's demeaning, and it's misunderstanding the problem, since a lot of people were less angry that he insulted her looks than they were that he was bringing them up to begin with. But Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who crossed party lines to support Fiorina in this battle, may have put it best. She tweeted, "Donald Trump should stop complimenting women and start respecting them.