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Donald Trump has no idea what to do on abortion

Trump's yearlong struggle to arrive at a position augurs poorly for a GOP that can't ignore this issue -- no matter how much it might want to.

By Aaron Blake | 2024-04-03

Joan Bell of Montague, N.J., prays for Donald Trump as she listens to him speak on Jan. 6, 2021. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

No modern presidency has been as consequential for the antiabortion movement as Donald Trump's. And perhaps no present-day politician appears as uncertain about what to do about the issue now as Donald Trump.

Confirmation that voters in Trump's home state of Florida will soon vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights into law -- and whether to effectively veto Gov. Ron DeSantis's and the state GOP's six-week abortion ban -- arrived this week. Similar questions could be on the ballot in many other states as Trump seeks a second stint in the White House.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has responded to this development with all the political certainty of a college freshman running for class president. And his hemming and hawing -- even after effectively locking up the Republican nomination -- speaks volumes about how much this sudden liability of an issue looms over the GOP's 2024 hopes.

Trump's campaign initially put out a statement Monday saying merely, "President Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states' rights, because he supports the voters' right to make decisions for themselves."

It's great to support the democratic process -- something that isn't always a given with Trump -- but that statement basically says nothing about his own view on the issue at hand. And when asked for more specificity Tuesday about Florida's six-week ban, Trump played a familiar card: I'll tell you later.

"We'll be making a statement next week on abortion," Trump said.

Translation: I really don't want to talk about this, and I need to figure out my position.

It's a lot like when Trump spent the better part of five years promising a health-care plan that was always just around the corner -- often "two weeks" away. We'll see if this plan proves that elusive.

Just as it's a lot easier to say "repeal Obamacare" than to put forward your own plan to be picked apart, it's a lot easier to say "overturn Roe v. Wade" than it is to delineate what restrictions should be in place after that.

And his stalling was merely the latest evidence of Trump's remarkable uncertainty when it comes to the new abortion rights paradigm:

In sum, it's been nearly two years since the Supreme Court opened up this issue by overturning Roe. Trump has been asked for a year what his specific position is and hasn't enunciated one. He keeps providing mixed signals on whether this should be a federal issue at all. And now he won't even say whether he supports a six-week state ban that less than seven months ago he called "terrible."

Of course, it's no secret what's really going on here. Trump fears this issue; he has repeatedly suggested that Republicans lose elections by going too extreme on it.

"It was the 'abortion issue,' poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters," he posted on Truth Social after Republicans' underwhelming 2022 election results.

Trump clearly doesn't want that to happen to him. But it's not as if he can spend the next seven months punting on this issue. And the fact that he still doesn't have a good, ready-made answer a month after wrapping up the GOP nomination suggests that perhaps there just isn't one.


This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/03/donald-trump-has-no-idea-what-do-abortion/


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