Trump began the week by declining to endorse federal restrictions and followed up by knocking a restrictive Arizona abortion law.
The relationship between Donald Trump and the pro-life movement has been on shaky ground for a while now: The former president blamed pro-lifers for Republicans’ lackluster showing in the midterms and then refused to stake out a firm position on the issue during the GOP primary. But what began as coded, quiet bickering between Trump world and pro-life organizations, with both sides trying to avoid entirely alienating the other, exploded into full public view earlier this week as Trump declined to endorse federal abortion restrictions, only to follow up days later by saying the Arizona supreme court went too far in upholding a law that bans nearly all abortions.
“Yeah they did,” Trump told reporters at an airport in Georgia earlier today when asked if the Arizona supreme court ruling went “too far.” “That’ll be straightened out, and as you know it’s all about states’ rights.”
Also on Wednesday, Trump again took credit for helping overturn Roe v. Wade but said he would decline to sign a federal abortion ban if he wins in November.
The comments are likely to further alienate a portion of anti-abortion advocates who already believe that in declining to endorse a nationwide ban and leaving the issue to the states, the GOP’s presumptive 2024 nominee has sold the pro-life movement down the river.
One group that falls into that fiercely critical category is Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which has spent the past year lobbying Trump and other GOP candidates to endorse a 15-week federal ban.
“We believe unborn children and their mothers deserve national protection and to be protected from brutal late-term abortion all throughout this country regardless of where you live — whether you’re in Texas or you’re in California,” said Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for the group.
Other pro-life advocates went even further in their criticism. Former vice president Mike Pence called Trump’s Monday remarks a “slap in the face” to the pro-life moment, and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham — a longtime advocate of a 15-week federal ban who has a complicated relationship with the former president — called Trump’s new approach a “mistake.”
Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, went so far as to say that Trump is “not a pro-life candidate,” in a statement on Monday. “He’s far less pro-abortion than Biden, but he supports killing some preborn children and will even make that his position in an attempt to get pro-abortion votes.”
Trump’s abortion remarks this week are a clear effort to turn down the temperature on one of the most divisive policy issues of the presidential cycle. After waffling on the issue for more than a year on the campaign trail, the GOP’s presumptive 2024 nominee and his campaign strategists have apparently concluded that endorsing a nationwide ban would carry too many political risks at the ballot box in November — the first presidential election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade almost two years ago.
“They’re clearly trying to appeal to swing voters and persuadable voters across the country, and so taking probably a more strategic approach on what can be a hot-button issue is not a surprise,” said Timothy Head, executive director of Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Compared with other pro-life advocates, Head is far less critical of Trump’s federalist approach to the issue. “We remain certainly committed to protecting innocent life. Even since the Dobbs decision came down, our approach really has been to focus on states,” he said, adding that the strategy has been “pretty effective.”
In finally staking out new political ground on the issue, Trump is also playing catch-up to the Republican leaders and operatives who have spent the past two years strategizing how to help pro-life candidates win elections without alienating independents. Their strategizing comes after a disastrous midterm cycle for Senate Republicans in 2022, when several already weak battleground candidates struggled to articulate a clear position on abortion after the Dobbs decision.
This cycle’s Senate campaign chief is taking a different approach. His advice? Tell voters where you stand so your Democratic opponent doesn’t define your position for you.
“It’s important that voters know where the candidates stand, and to not run away from the issue,” National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman Steve Daines said in a brief interview with National Review in the U.S. Capitol earlier this week.
Kari Lake, his preferred GOP candidate in Arizona, is experimenting with that tactic this week in opposing the state supreme court’s restrictive abortion ruling and urging the state legislature and Democratic governor to adopt a more “common sense solution” before the law goes into effect later this month. (Democrats have spent the past 24 hours flooding reporters’ inboxes with reminders that Lake, who said Wednesday that her Senate campaign opposes federal bans on abortion, had praised the 1864 law when she ran for governor in 2022.)
Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, is pushing a tactic in the lower chamber similar to the one recommended by Daines, urging vulnerable incumbents and 2024 House candidates to clearly and consistently remind voters of their position on the issue.
Trump’s new stance on abortion also came as welcome news to the elected Republicans from deep-red states and districts who aren’t facing tough reelection battles in 2024 but prefer a federalist approach.
Senator Mike Rounds (R., S.D.) is hopeful Trump’s announcement will change the contours of the abortion debate at the presidential level “because that is exactly the position that we have held for years,” he told NR in the U.S. Capitol Monday evening. “It is consistent and it is correct. The states should make the decisions and we should stay out of it at the federal level.”
“Abortion is a states’ rights issue. That’s been our position for forever,” Representative John Rutherford (R., Fla.) said in an interview on Tuesday. “Why would we now turn around and say, ‘Well, I think we should support a nationwide ban?’”
As Ramesh Ponnuru points out, however, in 2018 the majority of Senate Republicans voted for a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks, and “the 1984 GOP party platform endorsed federal legislation ‘to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.’ Every subsequent Republican platform has included similar language.”
Republican debates on how to effectively message around abortion come as Democrats continue to paint the GOP as extremists on the issue.
Like other outspoken pro-life Republican National Committee (RNC) members from the South, Texas RNC committeeman Robin Armstrong is personally in favor of a 15-week nationwide ban on abortion but believes that the electorate is not on the same page at the moment.
“Some of my colleagues in the Northeast are frustrated when we talk about this issue, because they’re convinced it hurts them,” Armstrong said. “And I get that, but it’s an issue that we have to discuss because it will certainly hurt them more if the Democrats are allowed to mischaracterize our position.”
Around NR:
• After the five major broadcast and cable news networks reportedly prepared a joint open letter urging Biden and Trump to participate in televised debates ahead of Election Day, Jim Geraghty underscored how unusual the situation has become:
Look, most of us can see what’s going on here. It was bad that Trump blew off the primary debates, not wanting to jeopardize his lead or provide any of his potential rivals with a shining moment in front of a big television audience. It will be even worse if Biden ends the tradition of general election presidential debates since 1976 because he — or more likely, his staff — fears he’ll have a senior moment and look forgetful, confused, or befuddled.
• Geraghty also isn’t buying Democrats’ claims that North Carolina or Florida will be in play this cycle. Instead, he argues Biden will not win any state in 2024 that he didn’t win in 2020:
One reason I am so skeptical is that I think the Joe Biden of 2024 is a significantly weaker candidate than he was in 2020. First and foremost, he’s no longer approaching his eighties, he turns 82 shortly after Election Day and an overwhelming majority of Americans think he’s just too old to serve another term. Secondly, Biden has a record as president now, and Americans are unimpressed, disappointed, and frustrated with the job Biden is doing. Nor is this some temporary slump; Biden’s job approval number has been around 40 to 45 percent since late 2021.
• Now it is President Biden’s turn to worry about ballot access, writes Jack Butler, as a legal hurdle threatens the president’s ability to appear on Ohio’s ballot:
State law, not partisan spite, threatens him: specifically, a provision that a presidential candidate be officially certified as his party’s nominee 90 days before the general election. The Democratic National Convention, beginning August 19, is insufficiently distant from the November 5 general election to qualify. The Columbus Dispatch explains that Democrats can avoid this fate if they move up their convention, or if the Ohio general assembly passes a one-time waiver allowing an exception (as it did for both parties in 2020). The Biden campaign says that it is “monitoring the situation in Ohio” (aren’t we all) and fully expects Biden to be on all states’ ballots. He almost certainly will be.
• Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers recently scored another congressional endorsement, this one from House GOP secretary Lisa McClain (R., Mich.), as Audrey reported this week, in “yet another sign that the former House Intelligence Committee chairman and FBI agent is consolidating support among Michigan Republicans in his primary bid for the seat of retiring Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow.”
By endorsing Rogers, McClain joins a growing list of Republicans — including former president Donald Trump and two Republican representatives from Michigan, Jack Bergman and Tim Walberg — in backing the preferred 2024 candidate of the Senate Republican campaign arm ahead of the state’s August primary.