Trump Calls Obama's Women-In-Charge Claim 'Ridiculous' as Online Critic Brands Him 'Nasty Old Misogynist'

Asked whether the world would be better off with women running every government for two years, Donald Trump shook his head, said he loved women, and called the idea ridiculous.

The exchange took place outside the White House on Saturday 26 September 2026, as the president prepared to leave for Tennessee and a reporter put to him a remark Barack Obama had made earlier in the week.

Trump's answer was broadcast on Fox News and clipped widely online, and one user on X responded by calling him a 'nasty old misogynist'. Obama has made the same argument about women in leadership for years.

What Trump Said

The question quoted Obama directly. 'Barack Obama just said if you put women in charge of every government for two years, things would be better. Do you buy that?' the reporter asked, according to a video of the exchange shared by journalist Aaron Rupar.

Trump dismissed it. 'It's ridiculous. I love women. I think they're great. But what a ridiculous statement that is,' he said, before turning to the reporter and adding, 'Even you would say that'.

The remark came during a wider question-and-answer session before his departure. In the same exchange, Trump said he had rejected Iran's latest proposal, which had been conveyed to the United States through indirect negotiations in New York earlier in the week.

'They have made a proposal and I rejected it,' he said. Axios reported that those talks involved US envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Qatari mediators.

What Obama Said

The comment Trump was responding to came on Monday 21 September. Obama made it during a conversation with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin at Salem State University in Massachusetts, where he considered the hypothetical of women running every government for two years.

He was careful not to promise perfection. 'I have a strong belief that things would... they wouldn't be perfect, but they'd be better. I'm confident about that,' Obama said, in remarks C-SPAN shared on 24 September.

It was not a new position for him. Speaking at a leadership event in Singapore in December 2019, Obama told women in the audience that they were not perfect but were 'pretty indisputably' better than men, and said that if every nation were run by women for two years there would be significant improvements across the board on just about everything.

The Reaction Online

Some viewers who saw the Fox broadcast responded on social media. 'Pffff. He 'loves' women alright. Nasty old misogynist,' wrote one user on X, according to reporting on the reaction. Another described the president as an 'emotional, idiot man-baby'.

Those were individual posts rather than a measure of wider opinion. The comments were highlighted in subsequent coverage of the exchange, with some reports focusing on the contrast between Trump saying he loved women and dismissing Obama's hypothetical.

The word the critic reached for has history. Trump called Hillary Clinton a 'nasty woman' during their final presidential debate in October 2016, a phrase her supporters quickly adopted as a rallying cry.

The contrast between Trump's two remarks was also noted during that debate. Earlier in the same exchange, Trump had said that nobody had more respect for women than he did.

Obama, 65, and Trump, 80, have traded public barbs since Trump succeeded Obama in January 2017.

Obama offered his view as a hypothetical he was confident about, and Trump dismissed it in a single sentence on his way to Tennessee.