‘Please Don’t Hit Me!’ CNN’s Jim Acosta Asks Panel Of Women Provocative Question

CNN anchor Jim Acosta asked a panel of three women to “Please don’t hit me” for asking a provocative question — “Are there women who don’t want a woman president?”

Going into Election Day, the expectation was that it would be a close presidential race that could take days or longer to reach a clear decision. But once polls began to close and the results poured in, it was only a matter of hours before outlets called the race for former President — and now President-elect — Donald Trump.

One of the more stunning features of Trump’s win is the slate of groups with which he made gains — including with women.

On Friday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, the host held a “real talk” with a panel consisting of CNN’s S.E. Cupp, Democratic strategist  Julie Roginsky, and poli-sci Professor Kelly Dittmar.

Acknowledging his position as “the guy” in the discussion, Acosta asked a lot of provocative questions about the support Trump gained with women — including one he was afraid might get him brained:

JIM ACOSTA: What are your thoughts on all of this? I mean, I’m the guy here. You know it — to me, you know, one of the questions that I have —

S.E. CUPP: You’re doing your best, Jim!

JIM ACOSTA: — and I guess I just, no, but yeah, and maybe that’s not good enough, but the question that I have and I’m going to say it is, are there some women out there who don’t want to have a woman president? And please don’t hit me over the head for asking that question! But, Kelly, I’m going to ask it.

PROF. KELLY DITTMER: Yeah. Yeah. So I want to — I want to say two things. First, regarding that, which is, first of all, the majority of women voted for Kamala Harris.

And women and men both, right, declined their support for the Democratic candidate. So I worry about a narrative that’s about kind of women lost this election for Harris in some way, right?

JIM ACOSTA: Hundred percent.

PROF. KELLY DITTMER: Ultimately, men supported Donald Trump. And both men and women. And across the board, if you look across demographic groups saw decline in support. Harris underperformed across the board with Democrats. Yeah. And in broadly speaking, for a lot of the reasons.

So thinking about it, is it about the gender of the candidate? No. Right — part of the reason we expected more women to vote for Harris, I think, was because people thought, well, they’ll be excited that there’s a woman.

We know in every election that gender identity of the candidate is not pushing the vote.

What’s more surprising, I think, in this election, when something we really have to tap into is why is it not disqualifying to have a candidate who plays on misogyny and racism, tapped into it as a primary point of all of his campaigns?

And voters, men and women alike, are still willing to vote for him. To me that’s the gender story that we have to pay attention to.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.