Trump Shifts Abortion Messaging, Angering Both Right and Left
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump has said abortion is an issue best left to the states, complained about Republican messaging and avoided mentioning it in a speech accepting his party’s nomination.
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The GOP presidential nominee is now taking a new tack: Positioning himself as a leader on women’s reproductive rights, much to the outrage of Democrats — who say the pivot is an insincere ploy to win over voters — and some of his allies who think he’s abandoned them.
In recent days, Trump has said on his social media platform Truth Social that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” He’s pledged to not enforce a 150-year-old law that bans mail delivery of contraceptives, and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, said Trump would “absolutely” veto any federal abortion ban passed by Congress.
Trump’s comments come as the Republican ticket struggles with how to talk about the reproductive rights restrictions they’ve championed for years, without turning off the key swing state voters they’ll need in November. Earlier this month, Trump said he was open to restricting access to mifepristone, a pill used in medical abortions.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign said in a statement that the former president “has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion and has been very clear that he will NOT sign a federal ban when he is back in the White House.” Campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt added that Trump “also supports universal access to contraception” and in vitro fertilization.
Trump had a hand in creating the quandary he’s now mired in. Conservative justices he appointed to the Supreme Court overturned in 2022 the federal abortion protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade.
Trump has said he’s “proud” of his role in that decision, which led to Republican states quickly imposing abortions bans, some as short as six weeks after pregnancy, and creating a patchwork of laws across the country with the availability of reproductive care varying widely based on the politics of a given state.
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“A lot of voters, since the election in 2016, believe Trump is not anti-abortion in his heart, but he was in his deeds. You can make all of the statements you want but you cannot overcome what the Supreme Court did when it overturned Roe v. Wade,” said longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.
The softer approach to abortion messaging coincides with Kamala Harris cementing herself as a formidable candidate in the race. The vice president has been an unapologetic voice for Democrats on abortion access, an issue she is far more comfortable discussing with voters than her predecessor on the ticket, President Joe Biden, an 81-year-old Irish Catholic. Harris made it a cornerstone of her portfolio as vice president and visited an abortion clinic in Minnesota, a first for someone in her role.
Trump’s Pivot
For Trump, his position on abortion can shift based on whom he’s talking to. In front of evangelical Christians, Trump touts his success at appointing conservative justices who helped overturn abortion protections. On the national stage, he’s spent much of the 2024 campaign downplaying the topic that polls show is one where he is least trusted by voters.
He’s carefully calibrated his remarks to both keep his base of evangelical Christians happy, while also avoiding embracing wide-reaching abortion restrictions he’s said in interviews he thinks are politically damaging to Republicans.
Still, the former president has generally shied away from the topic of abortion, only taking stances — which are at times sometimes contradictory with prior statements — when pressed in interviews.
It’ll be impossible, however, for Trump to avoid talking about the issue, as many liberal voters — and some moderates — are motivated to vote to protect reproductive rights. As many as 10 states could have abortion-related ballot measures on Election Day, including the swing states of Arizona and Nevada. Those measures are likely to spur turnout among the suburban women that have been turned off by Trump’s rhetoric.
Earlier: The State-by-State Battle Over Abortion in the US: QuickTake
Vance’s comments on Sunday in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump would veto a federal abortion ban prompted swift backlash from the anti-abortion community.
“It’s like they are giving a class on how to lose a Presidential election,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, said on X. “Cowardly, immoral, and politically stupid.”
Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, wrote: “God have mercy on this nation if this is now the position of what was the Pro-Life Party.”
Vance’s comments were also condemned by the left. On Sunday Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, bashed her Senate colleague and Trump.
“American women are not stupid,” Warren said. “We are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country.”
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