Arizona Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Blake Masters once refuted the notion of a “gender pay gap” in the United States, calling it a fictitious “left wing narrative,” as revealed on video obtained by MSNBC.
Masters, who ideologically stands alongside the Trump-backed Ohio Republican Senate prospect J.D. Vance, said in the video that “women are not paid less in America than men.”
In the video, Masters highlighted certain factors that could explain why some believe that women are paid less than men, such as maternity leave.
“It’s a left wing narrative, this gender pay gap. When you control for the occupations, when you control for people taking time out to birth children, you know, things are actually pretty equal,” Masters said in the video.
Masters also pointed out that men “do the most dangerous jobs” compared to women in America.
“Men are the ones who are the police officers. Not all of it, but you know, 80 percent of it in this country. Men are the ones who are doing risky, you know, fishing, crab fishing in Alaska,” he added.
“Sometimes those jobs pay more,” Masters said. “So I think we gotta push back on the fake left wing narrative that women don’t have equal rights in this country.”
NEW: Video obtained by NBC News shows Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters disputing the existence of a gender pay gap. @VaughnHillyard reports.
Masters: “Women are not paid less in America than men. It’s a left-wing narrative, this gender pay gap.” pic.twitter.com/uovx7QKU1m
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 11, 2022
Masters noted that he wants women to have equality among men in the U.S. but warned against the White House’s “National Gender Strategy.”
“I want women to have equal rights, but we don’t need an Equal Rights amendment that would actually just be a Trojan horse to give the government more power to implement Kamala Harris’ ‘National Gender Strategy,” Masters said.
“This is what the left does, and we have to resist it,” he said.
The video of Master’s remarks was featured on MSNBC’s “Meet The Press” on Wednesday.
Shortly after the clip aired, MSNBC host Chuck Todd’s guest said “Now Chuck, in this video here, this is what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the new Republican Party of today, and there’s much we could tackle here, uh, around what you just heard from Blake Masters.”
MSNBC then insisted that the notion of a gender pay gap is true, refuting the statements made by Masters.
