The crowd did, in fact, laugh

Trump’s good friend Duterte has a new idea:

Addressing a group of former communist rebels on Wednesday, Duterte, who served as a city mayor before becoming president, appeared to encourage the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to target women in conflict.

“Tell the soldiers. ‘There’s a new order coming from the mayor. We won’t kill you. We will just shoot your vagina,’ ” he said.

“If there is no vagina, it would be useless,” Duterte continued, according to local media reports, appearing to imply that women are useless without their genitals.

The president’s communications office included the comment in the official transcript from the event but replaced the word “vagina” with a dash.

Well I’m guessing he didn’t say the Tagalog equivalent of “vagina” – I’m guessing it was the local version of “cunt.”

Duterte regularly denigrates and threatens women, but when challenged, he insists it was all just a joke. Just last week, his spokesman accused women of “overreacting” to the president’s comments. “I mean, that’s funny. Come on. Just laugh,” Harry Roque said.

According to the official transcript from the Wednesday event, the crowd did, in fact, laugh at Duterte’s remarks.

Duterte, who was elected president in 2016, has made headlines for “joking” about the rape of a kidnapped Australian who was later killed and for telling troops to rape women in conflict. He often shares unsolicited opinions on the sexual attractiveness of women, particularly female politicians who question his policies, in an apparent effort to demean, shame and silence them.

Nooooooooo, he’s just making “jokes.”

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