Donald Trump’s plan for a 16-week, national abortion ban wasn’t supposed to be public. Democrats are ready to pounce
LATE LAST WEEK, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump privately told his allies he backs a 16-week national abortion ban with some exceptions. Inside the Trump campaign, the news was immediately met with deep annoyance, anger, and a scramble for damage control, two people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone.
Prior to the report, the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner had repeatedly stressed to advisers that he wants to avoid announcing specific abortion policy positions, at least during this stage of the election cycle, sources close to him say. This is, of course, largely because he understands the dismantling of Roe v. Wade — which he engineered — has become a grave political liability for Republicans.
Members of Trump’s senior staff were maddened by the leak to the Times, venting to one another that whoever blabbed to the media about this wasn’t being helpful, the two sources recount. They weren’t the only ones upset by it: The report also served to inflame some of the anti-abortion movement’s most uncompromising figures, who lashed out at Trump for being insufficiently “pro-life.” Some Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill winced at the news too; they, like Trump, hoped to spend the first half of 2024 talking about abortion as little as possible, according to one GOP lawmaker who bemoaned the recent string of conservatives’ election losses that have largely been attributed to “the Dobbs effect.” Democrats, on the other hand, were thrilled.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Prior to the report, the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner had repeatedly stressed to advisers that he wants to avoid announcing specific abortion policy positions, at least during this stage of the election cycle, sources close to him say.
In recent months, President Joe Biden‘s team has determined that campaigning on abortion rights, including by elevating highly personal experiences of specific women willing to tell their stories, has been particularly powerful and effective.
While Democrats and their allies were hastily working to draw attention to the Times report, operatives at the hardline anti-abortion political action group Students for Life — who supported Trump in 2016 — were fuming.
Though it is common for the notoriously mercurial Trump to endorse policies then later adjust or reverse himself, a source with direct knowledge of the situation confirms to Rolling Stone that this month, the ex-president privately expressed enthusiasm for a 16-week federal prohibition, claiming this is a position that most Americans share.
Trump and his team’s irritation at the leak isn’t that surprising, given how much he and his lieutenants have been working to thread a needle that at first glance seems nearly impossible for him — as the self-described “most pro-life president ever” and the man most responsible for destroying the federal right to an abortion.
At the same time, his quiet support for some form of national ban has been driven by his desire to keep influential pro-life figures firmly in his corner during a general election, even though they were largely powerless to pressure him to publicly commit to their wish lists in the GOP primary.
The original article contains 1,414 words, the summary contains 266 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!