EUGENE, Ore. (CN) — Donald Trump continued his pivot to the general election on Friday, telling an audience in Eugene, Oregon that Hillary Clinton was "mean" and "nasty" to the women with whom Bill Clinton had affairs.
The presumptive GOP nominee visited Eugene, a small college town best known as home of the University of Oregon and its tradition of liberalism, as the Republican establishment continued to struggle with the idea of Trump being the party's standard bearer.
The unrest in the air was reflected in Oregon outside the Lane Event Center, where arguments and some productive dialogue broke out between protesters and Trump supporters.
Opponents of Trump are carrying signs with slogans like "Trump Hates Women" and "Be American, Not Partisan," while Trump's supporters are shouting things like "This Is Our Country!"
The candidate himself tried to turn the tables on detractors who say his sexist comments about Rosie O'Donnell, Megyn Kelly and other women he disagrees with show that he's not a good candidate for women voters.
"Women want strength," Trump said. "They want border security. Nobody respects women more than Donald Trump."
Trump said it was the Democrat's likely presidential nominee who would actually be bad for women if elected. He said Clinton was pouring campaign money into misguided attack ads about his track record on women's issues.
Trump said Hillary Clinton was "mean, nasty" to the women who had affairs with Bill Clinton.
"What they're doing is $90 million in ads on Donald Trump and it has to do with the women's issue," Trump said. "But I'm thinking to myself, nobody in the history of this country was worse with women than Bill Clinton. And Hillary was a total enabler. She would go after these women and destroy their lives. Have you ever heard about what Hillary did to the women that Bill had affairs with? And they're going after me about women? Give me a break, folks."
Trump repeatedly encouraged the crowd of 4,000 to boo at news people assembled within a corral in the center of the room.
"These are the most horrible, dishonest people you'll ever meet," he said to the apparent delight of his supporters.
And Trump praised former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, who introduced Trump at an Evansville, Indiana rally on April 28, by saying Trump would have the "guts" to start a nuclear war.
"We gotta talk about this presidential crap just for a moment here," Knight said at the April 28 rally. "I'll tell you who they said wasn't presidential. I don't even know what the hell presidential means, but they told him he wasn't presidential. And that guy they told all these people that wanted to say, you're not presidential, that guy was Harry Truman.
"And Harry Truman, with what he did in dropping and having the guts to drop the bomb in 1944 saved, saved millions of American lives," Knight added. "And that's what Harry Truman did. And he became one of the three great presidents of the United States. And here's a man who would do the same thing, because he's going to become one of the four great presidents of the United States."
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