You don't want to go back into the federal government. Trump: I won't have to commit to it because it’ll never-number one, it’ll never happen. TIME: So just to be clear, then: You won't commit to vetoing the bill if there's federal restrictions-federal abortion restrictions? Notably, Eric couldn’t exactly pin down Trump on what he would do if a federal abortion ban reached his Oval Office desk. Yet Trump’s allies, many of whom belong to groups preparing to help staff his administration, are not on board with Trump’s new position, and are likely to push for an approach like Trump’s first term-nominating anti-abortion judges and instituting regulations that reduced access to the procedure. Now, he’s suggesting that, under his watch, the federal government would get out of the abortion regime altogether. As a candidate, he at one point supported punishing pregnant individuals who defy abortion bans, and then immediately backtracked, saying only going after the healthcare professionals who provide the procedure. He seldom seemed to believe even his harshest rhetoric on reproductive rights. Perhaps Trump has always been this indifferent to this most hot-button of issues and only in pursuit of the drama.

More than two weeks later, Eric asked Trump again about that in a phone call, and he punted again. Trump initially punted on the issue, promising Eric an answer in 14 days. One area where Trump can’t completely cede taking a position to states is abortion medication, which is regulated on the federal level and accounts for roughly two-thirds of terminated pregnancies. Basically, it’s a choose-your-own-future landscape that is defined by geography more than circumstance. Trump and his advisers have decided that deep-red states should be free to enact a total ban on abortions if that is what they want, while allowing true-blue states to provide the procedure to their own whims. Trump’s latest position is not all that dissimilar to how states have limits on gun rights or require car insurance.

It's totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” Trump’s response was militantly laissez faire: “I think they might do that.” What about states prosecuting pregnant persons who defy an abortion ban? Trump said, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. Later in the interview, Eric pressed Trump on red states taking even more restrictive measures to prevent abortion access, like tracking pregnancies. For years now, many have assumed Trump supports finishing what he started, and restricting abortion access across the country. As President, he pushed Congress to pass a 20-week abortion ban and appointed scores of anti-abortion judges, including three justices to the Supreme Court who made the end of Roe possible. Trump spent the next four years proving those doubters wrong. Wade, there were plenty of people who didn't believe him. And when the thrice-married New York playboy who had years earlier proclaimed himself pro-choice was now promising to nominate judges who would overturn Roe v. That January day, we all thought we were watching a sideshow and not the main event. In a nod to just how surreal the whole weekend had become, vendors had buckets of popcorn available, as if the first leg of the Republican presidential primary were on the level with a circus or county fair. Ted Cruz-his chief rival at the time-and a 90-minute drive south, we were settling into the red-velvet theater seats of the Adler Theater in Davenport for a friendly Q&A sessions between Trump and his most unlikely of endorsers, then-Liberty University President Jerry Fallwell, Jr. After an outdoor series of attacks against Sen. We stood in a chilly airplane hangar in Dubuque as the score from and Trump’s private 757 did a flyby. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.Įight years ago, the final Saturday before the Iowa caucuses brought forward all of the contradictions and chaos of then-reality star Donald Trump’s candidacy for the presidency.

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