Former President Donald Trump speaks at a Concerned Women for America Summit at the Capitol Hilton, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, in Washington.
Credit: PTI/AP
Former President Donald Trump, whose Supreme Court appointments led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, harshly criticized his top rival in the Republican presidential primary, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for a six-week abortion ban that he called a “terrible thing.”
Trump issued his broadside — which could turn off socially conservative Republican primary voters, especially in Iowa, where evangelicals are a crucial voting bloc — during an interview with the new host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Kristen Welker, that was broadcast Sunday morning.
Asked whether DeSantis went too far by signing a six-week abortion ban, Trump replied: “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
Since announcing his candidacy in November — just a week after Republicans underperformed expectations in midterm elections shaped by a backlash against the overturning of the abortion ruling — there has been no policy issue on which Trump has appeared more uncomfortable than on abortion.
With Welker on Sunday, Trump again refused to clarify his position.
“What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months,” Trump said. “You’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy.”
He made a far-fetched promise that as president he would “sit down with both sides” and negotiate a deal on abortion that would result in “peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years.”
In reality, Trump — who years ago said he supported abortion rights before switching his position in 2011 as he considered a presidential campaign that year — appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, providing a majority to reverse the Roe ruling. Democrats have made clear they plan to make Trump’s role in Roe’s end a key focus in the 2024 general election if he is the nominee.
What’s more, Iowa’s popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed a measure similar to the one DeSantis made law. A spokesperson for Reynolds did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for DeSantis, Andrew Romeo, responded to Trump’s attack by criticizing the former president for suggesting he could negotiate with Democrats on abortion, adding that the “disastrous results of Donald Trump compromising with Democrats” while he was president included “$7 trillion in new debt” and “an unfinished border wall.”