Former President Donald Trump will join Fox News’ Harris Faulkner this week for a town hall meeting, specifically to address American women. He has an opportunity to reintroduce himself as a thoughtful leader, who understands their problems and has a plan for making their situations better.
Women care about more than just abortion. Here are seven topics that women will want to hear covered:
1) Better times are coming: Trump already knows how rising costs have impacted families. Yet, he should keep in mind how women in particular experience inflation. Mothers go to grocery stores multiple times each week. We buy gas, kids’ clothes and school supplies. We feel those higher prices, and it makes each day a little harder. Increasing the supply of energy, reducing taxes and eliminating wasteful government spending are all important policies because they will bring prices down and give women breathing room in their budgets.
2) We need a champion for better, more flexible and diverse job opportunities: Today, a majority of women — particularly women over age 45 — worry about their financial prospects. They worry that if they lose their jobs, no one will interview them and that they will never earn as much again. They worry about whether they will be able to afford to retire. Women also worry that their elderly parents won’t be able to handle an unexpected expense and their adult children will never be able to afford a home of their own. The Biden-Harris administration has been strangling job creators with red tape. They are pushing to eliminate flexible work, like independent contracting jobs that are critical for women, especially caregivers and older women or those with health issues. A Trump administration will prioritize protecting flexible work and entrepreneurship.
3) We need transparency in healthcare: As president, Trump signed an executive order to require hospitals and insurance companies to disclose all of their prices so that consumers could make informed decisions before getting treatment. Economists estimated this policy could bring down healthcare costs by $1 trillion per year if fully implemented. The Biden administration has been delaying, rolling back and undermining these reforms. A Trump administration needs to enforce this rule and require systemwide transparency so people don’t have to worry about surprise medical bills, and to lower the costs of care through competition and choice.
4) Crime — whether at our border and in our cities — won’t be tolerated: Rampant illegal immigration is a symptom of the broader problem of lawlessness the Biden-Harris administration has brought to our country. Women should not have to fear leaving their homes at night. They should not have to worry that their children will see shoplifting, drug use, and vagrancy every time they leave the house. Women want to know that the nagging fear they feel about their safety will be addressed with a restoration of law, order and justice.
5) Women deserve their own sports and separate spaces: The rash of men who have been entering women’s athletics is another symptom of a culture and governance system that has abandoned common sense. Men should not play in women’s sports. Male prisoners should not go to women’s prisons. Women should not be forced to share showers and locker rooms with men. We can be kind and respectful to trans-identifying men, but that cannot come at the expense of women’s safety and opportunities.
6) We can create better, more affordable solutions for caregiving: Nothing is more important to women than to ensure that our loved ones are well cared for. A Trump administration should focus on reducing unnecessary red tape and enabling more options and opportunities. They should encourage the creation of more home-based daycare centers and expand successful programs like the au pair system to include care for seniors. Caregiving is a valuable service and can never be cheap, so we should embrace policies that ease the financial burden on families who need help.
7) American children deserve the best schools in the world: Too many public schools are putting students’ interests last. They prioritize pushing an ideological agenda on kids but fail to teach them basics like reading and math. Public schools should be transparent, and failing schools should be held accountable; parents should have better options and the ability to choose the best schools for their children.
Women are thoughtful and open to new arguments. Lingering memories of unpleasant personal dramas and political bickering may have made many reluctant to support Trump; but women also know that our country and communities are on the wrong track. We know that neither we, nor our country, are better off today than we were four years ago. We worry that another four years of weak leadership abroad, a failure to enforce laws here at home, a continuing tolerance for broken schools and a culture that fails kids academically and emotionally, will do lasting damage.
Trump has the chance to remind women of what his administration got right the first time, and what another four years of his leadership and better policies will mean for all of us.
Carrie Lukas is vice president of Independent Women’s Voice (iwv.org).
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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