On Fox News last night, Donald Trump dodged a question about whether he will personally attack Hillary Clinton in the debates and started raving about a May, 2016 New York Times article about his skeezy behavior with women instead. “There is nobody that respects women more than Donald Trump,” he boasted. Yeah, except when he calls them “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”

In Part two of his interview on The O’Reilly Factor, after Trump bragged that his temperament is “my strongest thing,” host Bill O’Reilly became “curious” about whether Trump will throw marital smears at Clinton during the debates (transcript via Sopan Deb, with my emphases):

O’REILLY: I’m curious about this. If she comes after you for, for example, on the women’s card, would you go into her marital history and things like that? Is that going to happen?

TRUMP: Well, you know, the New York Times wrote a story about me and women. And it turned out that it was a false story. And honestly, we are going to take that up with them at a little bit later date. We’ll get rid of this first. We’ll go through this little process first which I think is going to end very successfully on November 8th. Outside here, I’m in Florida. We have thousands and thousands of people lined up outside - and then the arena, which is probably eight or 10,000 people, is packed to the rafters. I mean, something’s happening, Bill, that’s awfully amazing.

But the New York Times wrote a story about women and the women called the office. They said, “We never said that about Donald Trump. We really like him. He’s really good.” They quoted women and they never even said it and it was on the front page centerfold – massive, big, color picture. It was disgraceful. They are so dishonest. I will tell you what. There is nobody that respects women more than Donald Trump. That I can tell you. And I’ll help women because we have the women’s health problems. We have a lot of problems. And I will help a lot more than Hillary can. That I can tell you.

Besides the fact that no presidential candidate (possibly no man, ever) has likely disrespected women more than Trump, and besides the fact that Trump makes a practice of being disrespectful to Clinton, by calling her “Crooked Hillary,” e.g., and besides the fact that only one of the several women featured in The Times article has questioned the reporting, Trump’s claim that he wants to help women “because we have the women’s health problems” is somewhat reminiscent of his claim to want to help “the blacks” because “What do you have to lose?” In other words, because their lives suck.

But instead of challenging any of Trump’s BS, O’Reilly sounded almost affectionate as he replied, “Now, you skillfully dodged that question. That was really a good dodge.” Then he pressed Trump on the one point O’Reilly seemed to care about: “Would you go into the marital arena if she hits you with the women thing?”

For the record, Trump pretended he’s above that, while refusing to rule out such smears: “I don’t think I’m looking to do that, Bill. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Watch Trump's temperament in action below, from the September 19, 2016 The O'Reilly Factor.