cnn
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Former President Donald Trump, who paved the way for Roll back federal abortion rights protections.He said some Republicans “speak very inarticulately” on the issue and have implemented “terrible” restrictions at the state level that could alienate much of the country.
While he avoided taking specific positions, Trump said in an NBC interview that if he is re-elected he will try to negotiate compromises on how long abortion should be legal and whether those restrictions should be imposed at the federal or state level.
“I would sit down with both sides and negotiate something and we would end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years,” he said.
Trump also warned Republicans that the party would lose voters if it advanced abortion restrictions without exceptions for cases of rape, incest or risks to the mother’s life.
“Aside from certain parts of the country, you can’t win on this issue,” he said.
Trump’s comments made clear the challenge for Republican contenders in the 2024 presidential primary: trying to balance the priorities of his conservative base, for whom the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in June 2022 was a victory that had been decades in the making, and those of the general electorate. , who has consistently supported abortion rights, most recently in the 2022 midterm elections and in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race this spring.
Abortion could also be a key issue this fall in Virginia state legislative electionswhich are widely seen as a barometer of the mood of the electorate in the run-up to next year’s presidential election.
Trump’s appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices paved the way to overturn the 1973 decision guaranteeing the right to abortion throughout the United States during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
That reversal left the right to abortion in the hands of the states, which has led to a mosaic of laws – including bans on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy in Florida and Iowa, the first state to vote in the GOP presidential nominating process.
Abortion rights have been a major failure in the 2024 Republican primaries. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, has advocated for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s main rival in the polls, has touted the six-week ban he signed into law. However, other contenders, including Nikki Haley, have taken more moderate approaches, warning of the political backlash Republicans could face among the broader electorate if they impose strict restrictions on abortion.
In the NBC interview, Trump sharply criticized DeSantis, calling Florida’s six-week ban “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
However, the former president did not commit to a specific political preference. He dodged questions about whether he would support a federal ban (and, if so, after how many weeks) or would prefer to leave the issue in the hands of state chambers.
“What’s going to happen is you’re going to get a number of weeks or months, a number that will make people happy,” Trump said.
Trump said he believed it was “probably better” to leave abortion restrictions up to the states rather than try to pass federal legislation on the issue.
“From a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better. But I can live with it either way,” Trump said. “It could be state or federal, frankly I don’t care.”
He Debate within the Republican Party over abortion took center stage at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting, attended by many of the state’s leading conservative evangelical activists.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, one of Trump’s staunchest critics among Republican contenders, told reporters Saturday in Iowa that Trump has “taken evangelical voters for granted” and is “vacillating on important issues.”
“I think he’s looking at the abortion issue not as whether it’s going to gain evangelical support, but what that’s going to look like in the future, and like he said, he wants everyone to like him,” Hutchinson said.
When asked about federal abortion legislation, DeSantis continued not to address the issue of a national ban, instead pointing to new restrictions in states like Iowa and Florida.
“I have been a pro-life governor. “I will be a pro-life president,” DeSantis said. “Clearly, a state like Iowa has been able to move the ball with pro-life protections. “Florida has been able to move the ball.”
Pence reiterated his support for a federal ban on abortion after at least 15 weeks of pregnancy, saying, “It’s an idea whose time has come.” She said Trump and other Republican candidates want to relegate the abortion issue to the states, “but I won’t allow it.”
‘Personal for every woman and every man’
However, other contenders more focused on the general electorate, including Haley (former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations), have sought to thread the same needle like Trump.
Haley told attendees at the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Iowa on Saturday that her beliefs are the “hard truth.” She said pursuing a 15-week federal abortion ban would make “everyone run away from us.”
While Haley opposes abortion, she has emphasized that she believes Republicans and Democrats must find consensus on abortion-related issues, such as banning later abortions and agreeing not to imprison women who perform them.
“This issue is personal to each woman and each man. And we have to treat it that way. “I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice any more than I want to be judged for being pro-life,” she said.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on CNN last week that he would be willing to sign a federal abortion ban “if it represented a consensus,” although he acknowledged the current setbacks in reaching that consensus within the U.S. Senate and across the states.
“I want all 50 states to have a say if they want to and what their state laws should be, and then see if there is consensus,” he said.
Meanwhile, Democrats consider abortion to be one of the most important issues in the 2024 presidential election.
cnn previously reported that President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign earlier this month made a digital ad buy highlighting the positions of Trump and other 2024 Republican contenders on the issue.
“As Donald Trump visits states where women are suffering the consequences of his extreme anti-abortion agenda, this ad reminds voters in states that have passed some of the most extreme abortion bans of Trump’s key role in appointing conservative judges. who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez said in a statement to CNN.