Trump Wants Credit for All the Abortion Bans. He Also Doesn’t Have a Policy.

But in correctly asserting he was a critical player in overturning Roe, voters should let that speak for itself.

STAR MAX/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

As we were all reminded during an especially horrendous town hall last week, Donald Trump is not a shy man. His thoughts, much like his policies, tend to flow unvarnished, regardless of how misogynistic, delusional, and contradictory they might be.

But there’s one topic the former president has never seemed to want to offer a real stance on: abortion. That sidestepping strategy carried him in 2016—and it appears as though Trump believes it will work once again, even as political observers and rivals push him to attach a number to his extremist views.

Take a look at how the frontrunner of the Republican Party attempted to thread the needle on one of the most important issues of the presidential election over just the last week:

May 10

As my colleague Abigail Weinberg noted during CNN’s town hall featuring the former president last week, Trump repeatedly deflected questions on a national abortion ban. Even some in the audience seemed confused. “He didn’t actually answer me,” a registered nurse at the event said after asking Trump how he planned to appeal to women concerned after the fall of Roe. “Deals are being made,” Trump said instead. “Deals are going to be made.” 

May 15

A small level of specificity came days later while attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing,” Trump told The Messenger. “But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”

When asked how he personally felt about a six-week ban, however, Trump was characteristically noncommittal. The interview didn’t sit well with DeSantis, who quickly called out Trump for refusing to commit to the issue. “I signed the bill,” DeSantis hit back. “I was proud to do it. [Trump] won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”

May 17

Perhaps sensing an emerging weakness, Trump let loose with the following:

Many things can be evinced from these chaotic remarks: Trump is an idiot in the English language, and he still posts with abandon. But perhaps the most important point is that for Trump, an abortion debate doesn’t even exist. His policies, if you can call it that, have always been reactionary, designed in his brain to please whoever happens to be in the room. As Trump suggested this morning, he doesn’t care about the matter of “6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever.” He correctly asserts that he was a critical player in removing the constitutional right to an abortion—and that should speak for itself.

You could be forgiven for hoping that Trump’s elusiveness the first time around was a sign that maybe he’d be somewhat of a moderate on the issue. But as later evidenced, ambiguity ultimately meant that Trump never cared, and still doesn’t care, about a woman’s right to an abortion. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate