Trump is ‘taking women back to the Stone Age’: GOP challenger Bill Weld rips the president on MSNBC

President Donald Trump was blasted by both of his GOP challengers on Friday for attempting to end primary elections in four states.

“Remember, we always talk about -- there is general elections and there is primary elections, and there is all sorts of important differences between them obviously, but one of them is who runs them. The primary elections are run by political parties,” MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki reminded.

“Political parties get to set their own rules, and that means that some state Republican parties loyal to the Republican president, Donald Trump, are changing the rules when it comes to their presidential primaries and caucuses next year. Changing the rules, as in, doing away with them apparently,” he explained.

The states in question are Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina.

“It would prevent any kind of potential embarrassment for President Trump in a Republican primary. Remember South Carolina, usually one of the early states. Nevada, one of the early states,” Kornacki explained. “It would prevent any potential trouble for him in a contested primary.”

Trump is currently being challenged by former Gov. Bill Weld (R-MA) and former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL). Former Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) is considering joining the field.

During the previous hour on MSNBC, Walsh blasted the move as “undemocratic B.S.”

Kornacki played clips of Trump complaining that the Democratic Party in 2016 was “rigged.”

The host interviewed Weld about the situation.

“Elections are the most important thing we do in a democracy,” Weld argued. “And even if this has happened before, it is anti-democracy. And a vote is the ultimate expression of choice.”

“There are a lot of Republican women who disagree with the president on issues like, let’s say, in cases of rape, does a woman really have to carry the rapist’s child to term? That’s what the president and recent state statutes in the South expressed,” he said.

“To me, that’s taking women back to the Stone Age -- and people should have a vote on that,” Weld said.

The former two-term governor and top Justice Department official also explained his strategy for receiving cross-over votes from Democrats and Independents who are unhappy with Trump.

“And as you know, Steve, there are 20 states that permit crossover voting -- where Democrats and Independents can take a Republican ballot, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New England, Wisconsin, 20 of them, and I’m going to be focusing on those states to persuade independents and Democrats to come in,” Weld explained.

“And if they don’t care for President Trump, vote against him twice -- once for me in the Republican primary and once, vote for whoever they want in the general,” he explained.

“I’m getting a lot of traction with that argument,” Weld added.

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