Donald Trump took his frequent habit of describing himself as a “protector” of women further on Wednesday night in Wisconsin, when he declared he will protect them “whether the women like it or not” if he wins a second term in the White House.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not,’” Trump said. “I’m going to protect them.”

The rhetorical addition was pounced on by the Harris campaign as an issue of reproductive rights and broader concerns about gender roles and autonomy under a possible Trump administration.

“Donald Trump thinks he should get to make decisions about what you do with your body,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said in a social media post. “Whether you like it or not.”

A Harris campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, added Trump “thinks he knows better than the women of America”. Another spokesperson called the comment the defining line of the Trump campaign.

There have been dozens of claims of sexual misconduct levelled at the Republican candidate over the years, including a fresh allegation last week. Trump denies them all. Last year a judge ruled that a rape accusation against Trump was substantially true.

The Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt responded: “Harris may be the first woman Vice President but she has implemented dangerously liberal policies that have left women worse off financially and far less safe than we were four years ago under President Trump.”

Trump made the remarks in Wisconsin, where he arrived at a rally in a white garbage truck dressed as a sanitation worker, in a stunt aimed at drawing attention to remarks by Joe Biden that Republicans have interpreted as calling Trump supporters “garbage”. Biden has clarified that he was talking about the remarks of a podcaster who made a series of flagrantly racist jokes at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, including about Black people, Latinos and Jews.

Trump told the rally crowd on Wednesday that his advisers had been counseling him against describing himself as a “protector” for women.

“They said, ‘Sir, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say.’ I pay these guys a lot of money; can you believe it?” Trump said.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them. I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things.’”

Trump began talking about himself as a “protector of women” at a rally in September, when he said, “I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh, he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector.”

Polls show Trump trailing Harris among female voters, while he leads among men.

Harris has made reproductive rights central to her campaign after Trump appointed three conservative justices to the supreme court, who promptly overturned the right to abortion, a fact Trump often takes credit for.