Donald Trump has thoughts on Muslim women, and as you might expect given his previous comments on Islam, they are not very intelligent. Speaking at a New Hampshire rally on Monday, the GOP presidential candidate posited that Muslim women wear burkas because, that way, they “don’t have to put on makeup.”

According to the Daily Beast, Trump said that the United States should stop trying to export “freedom” in countries where intervention has not been successful, and should not attempt to liberate those who are required to wear burkas, a traditional head-to-toe covering commonly worn by Muslim women. Burkas have triggered debates in countries like France and Australia, and even within the Islamic world, where some argue that it is oppressive to women, while others say it is a cultural and religious custom meant to be preserved.?

Speaking of the spread of so-called freedom, Trump said, “I saw somebody say ‘we want it over there where the women don’t have to wear the you-know-what,'” gesticulating an outline of a burka with his hands.

He continued: “[Women] said, ‘We want to wear them, we’ve worn them for thousands of years. Why would anyone tell us not to?’ They want to!”

Whatever respect Trump was trying to demonstrate for Muslim women was undone by his underlying assumption that they are donning burkas not out of religious tradition but to get out of wearing makeup.

?”Fact is, it’s easier,” he said. “You don’t have to put on makeup. Look how beautiful everyone looks. Wouldn’t it be easier? Right? Wouldn’t that be easy?”

He didn’t stop there. He turned his imagined scenario into a joke by saying what it would be like if he wore a burka as a woman. “I’d be like, ‘I’m ready, darling, let’s go!” he said.

Credit: Cosmopolitan