Fact Check: Did Donald Trump really say women are 'not smart enough' to run the country?

WASHINGTON, DC: GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump held a press conference on Thursday, August 8, where he made claims about his popularity and commented on Kamala Harris.

He said that during his speech on January 6, 2021, he also called Harris a "radical" and criticized her record as "horrible."

However, after the press conference, a viral comment on social media claimed that Trump had said women were not "smart enough" to hold press conferences or run the country. Is there any truth to this? Let's find out below.

Did Trump say women are 'not smart enough' to run the country?

Public speaker Kenny Akers posted a video on X on Friday, August 9, with the caption, "Trump said women are not smart enough to do news conferences and are not smart enough to run this country—operation: 'Let Him Speak' is coming along nicely."

In the video, Trump said, "Excuse me, what are we doing right now? She's not doing any news conference. Do you know why? You know why she's not doing it?"

He added, "Because she can't do a news conference, she doesn't know how to do a news conference, she's not smart enough to do a news conference, and I'm sorry, we need smart people to lead this country."

False: Donald Trump did not say that women are 'not smart enough' to run the country

The claim made on the social media post is false, as Donald Trump did not make any such statement during his remarks at his Florida estate on Thursday, as per Newsweek.

However, Trump did question Harris' abilities as a public speaker. He criticized her by stating that she didn’t know how to conduct a press conference and emphasized that smart people are needed to lead the nation.

He said, "Because our country has never been in this danger before, both economically and from an outside, from an outside perspective, Russia doesn't respect us anymore. China doesn't respect us anymore. North Korea, Kim Jong Un, he liked me a lot, he doesn't like this group."

At no point in the viral video did he talk about the ability of women to run the country or hold press conferences.

Proof: The X post by Kenny Akers is misleading

Notably, the caption on the X video by Kenny Akers and the content of the video is completely different and does not go with each other.

Trump did not say that women were "not smart enough" to run the country.

The viral video on X was from the Thursday press conference in which he criticized Harris, but he did not say that women could not run the country during this conference or publicly elsewhere.

The video posted on social media was just a 13-second clip taken from the press conference.