A defensive Donald Trump is warning Hillary Clinton against playing "the war on women" card in the latest attack on the Democratic presidential front-runner, calling her campaign tactics "pathetic."
At Clinton's rally at a Keota, Iowa, school on Tuesday, the former secretary of state got a question from a fifth-grader who asked what Clinton would do about bullying,
the Des Moines Register reports.
The girl confessed she'd been bullied because of her asthma.
"I think we all need to be aware of the pain and real anguish bullying can cause," Clinton said after giving the child a hug, the Register reports. "I don't think a lot of people who do it really understand how it makes other people feel."
She then took sharp aim at Trump.
"We shouldn't let anybody bully their way into the presidency, because that is not who we are as Americans," she said, echoing the remark from another GOP contender, Jeb Bush, who scolded Trump at their debate in Las Vegas that he couldn't
"insult his way into the presidency."
Clinton has been stepping up her attacks on Trump as she zeroes in on a general election in which she appears to be confident she'll be the party's standard-bearer.
"I want him to talk every single day," Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said of Trump. "It's going to help propel our nominee to the White House."
But the Trump offensive also gives her a chance to get Democrats back into the political headlines as well as to hit back at GOP presidential primary candidates who've been critical of her.
"He's the leading Republican candidate but he's not really all that different from the other Republican candidates," said Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. "He heats things up more and that's not only outrageous but it's dangerous."
Yet Clinton also appears acutely aware the GOP has hit a nerve with an American public that is feeling insecure, frequently telling voters "It's OK to be afraid."
Meanwhile, Trump is bolstering his defense of remarks aimed at Clinton that have been criticized as vulgar, including his use of a Yiddish term to describe Clinton's 2008 primary loss to Obama.
The real estate billionaire cited a National Public Radio report in 2011 that used the term to
describe Walter Mondale's defeat in the 1984 presidential campaign.
Trump also has swiped at Clinton for
taking a long bathroom break at last Saturday's Democratic primary debate, calling it "too disgusting" to watch her return to the stage after the break.
In an interview Tuesday with the Register, Clinton blasted back: "I don't know that he has any boundaries at all. His bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign."
Yet, Trump also
brags about his female support on his Facebook page, posting a story and video of his women supporters who "love Trump at packed Michigan rally."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.