Speaking at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Trump praised Elon Musk’s SpaceX for its progress in rocketry. He lauded a recent landing during which two mechanical arms caught the rocket “like you grab your beautiful baby.”

Trump then took the opportunity to praise his improving self-control when it came to lewd references.

“See, I’ve gotten much better. Years ago, I would have said something else. But I’ve learned,” he said, prompting laughs. “I would have been a little bit more risqué.”

He made a similar remark at a Saturday rally, saying that previously, he would have said the catching of the rocket was “like you grab your … girlfriend.”

Trump may have been referencing his infamous Access Hollywood tape, which almost crippled his 2016 campaign. During the years-old tape, released just weeks before the election, Trump bragged that women let him grab them by their genitals.

The shocking reveal led many people to declare the campaign lost for Trump as female voters withdrew even further from the polarizing candidate.

Revisiting what might have been the most dangerous moment for him eight years ago, unprompted, and reminding voters about his long history of disparaging comments.

The 2024 race has featured one of the widest gender gaps in voting ever, with the final NBC News poll finding a 30-point gap between men and women. Women largely favor Harris, while men largely favor Trump.

Some have urged Trump to change his rhetoric in order to better appeal to women voters. However, many women are driven in their support of Harris by the issue of abortion, which Trump has largely sought to avoid.

One key vector of support is marriage — Trump does well with married women but is widely unpopular with unmarried women. Trump received 32% of the unmarried women’s vote in 2016 and 36% in 2020.

The former president has undertaken some targeted initiatives to appeal to women, such as an all-women town hall last month.