In a sprawling interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump dismissed charges that he was "sexist" and defended his recent statements on abortion.

Asked by THR's Janice Min how he expected to earn the female vote amid charges of "sexism," Trump said he's been "putting the word out" that women and women's health issues are "important" issues to him (inserted comments by THR).

So my daughter Ivanka, who is a terrific person, she came to me and she said, "You care so much about women, and you care so much about the whole thing with women's health issues," which is such an important issue to me. And she said, "You are really misunderstood, and you have to get the word out." And in the last week, I've been putting the word out. Melania told me that, and Ivanka told me that. And [Jeb]Bush came out [Aug. 4 at a Southern Baptist Convention event in Nashville] and said he didn't want to fund women's health, and then he went back and he said he made a mistake by saying it. That's not a mistake, that's stupidity.

That led Min to ask, with obvious implications, how he could win the vote "if you align yourself with the GOP platform?" Trump knocked down the implied argument by pointing out that not all women are pro-abortion:

You know, many women are pro-life. It's actually a 50-50 number right down the middle. It's actually 52, 53 percent in favor of pro-life. It's actually going the way toward pro-life. A lot of people don't know that. [A May Gallup Poll said 46 percent of women are pro-life.] So I think that probably in terms of votes, it's a neutral. … With pro-life it's actually trending toward more and more pro-life, I think it's up to 54 percent.

Trump's vacillation on abortion has been the source of criticism from both the left and the right. Min suggested to Trump that if he changed his position he might see a "radical shift in your support from both sides," but Trump ignored the statement, instead giving some context to his previous comments and taking the opportunity to slam Planned Parenthood:

Don't forget, when I was asked the first time [in 1999, he said he was "very pro-choice"], I was a real estate developer, and that was not a question that people went around asking you. And I actually said that the concept of abortion was always a tough concept for most people. Those Planned Parenthood videos that came out recently are terrible. It was also the cavalier way that they spoke about it. They didn't exactly have great representatives on the other side. We'll talk about those issues in six months.

Later in the interview Min returned to the topic of his "sexism," asking Trump how could talk about women's looks "and not be sexist?" Trump explained that some of the comments in question were stated on Howard Stern, where "You’re talking, you’re having fun, you’re a big real estate developer and a big businessman and what you say doesn’t matter." Trump then turned the sexist accusations around, pointing to some statements by Megyn Kelly.

Min also tried to get more out of Trump on his view of gay marriage and the Supreme Court ruling deeming it a Constitutional right. After asking him if he's ever been to a gay wedding (he has), Min asked if gay marriage was now a "dead issue" for Republicans. Trump's response: Yep.

Some people have hopes of passing amendments, but it's not going to happen. Congress can't pass simple things, let alone that. So anybody that's making that an issue is doing it for political reasons. The Supreme Court ruled on it.