BOYNTON BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump spent the weekend struggling to solidify his position on abortion. The timing for Democrats couldn’t have been better.
The Harris campaign on Tuesday launched a 50-stop “Reproductive Freedom” bus tour that kicked off in Trump’s adopted home state of Florida. It came just days after the former president said he planned to vote “no” on a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights into the state Constitution — but also muddled the issue when he said “you need more time” than Florida’s current laws making most abortion illegal after six weeks into a pregnancy.
“It's a happy coincidence,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) told reporters after the kickoff event, referring to the timing of Trump’s comments. “This Reproductive Freedom bus tour was planned anyway. But happy coincidences happen when you have a nonstop opportunity, which we do with Donald Trump being a liar, someone who can't be trusted.”
Trump isn’t in danger of losing Florida in November — underscored by the fact that neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz showed up to Tuesday’s event. But by choosing a location roughly 10 miles south of Palm Beach, Democrats made it clear they were trolling Trump over the issue. After gathering 500 supporters into a ballroom, the Harris campaign drove its newly minted bus by Mar-a-Lago even though Trump was in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Their move to campaign in Florida highlights how abortion continues to be an issue that Trump is vulnerable on, especially after he spent months steering clear of saying how he’d vote on Florida’s abortion amendment and then sending somewhat conflicting messages on it.
His campaign called it a waste of money for their Democratic opponents to be “spewing lies” in “Trump Country,” especially given high gas prices. “Republican policies are what turned Florida red, and why it will continue to be a place Americans flock to for freedom,” said Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign.
But Democrats chose Florida to show how the state’s abortion laws, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, put Trump in a political bind. At Tuesday’s campaign stop, one Democratic speaker after another drew attention to Trump’s weekend statements, as well as quoting comments he made while in office or during his 2016 run.
“He has had more positions on reproductive rights than he has had wives,” Republican TV personality Ana Navarro, who supports abortion rights, said of Trump at the campaign event.
Democrats are aiming to repeat the success they believe abortion rights delivered for them in the 2022 midterms, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, when they hung onto more seats nationally than they expected. They also say they have the upper hand on the issue because voters in other states have chosen to expand abortion rights through ballot measures when given the chance, including in conservative-leaning ones like Ohio.
“We are reminding Trump of the fact that by pulling our reproductive freedom and putting it on the ballot, he is going to have an incredible amount of energy and organizing that he is going to have to contend with,” Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said at the kickoff bus tour.
At the event, women posed in front of a white synthetic floral backdrop with the words “Trust Women” glowing in lights above them. They held signs that read, “Stop Trump’s Abortion Ban” and began chanting, “We’re not going back!” Beyonce’s “Freedom” and Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud” blasted over the sound system.
Harris’ campaign has said she supports abortion until viability, which is between 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy, though the Biden administration has backed a bill that, similar to the Florida amendment, would allow later abortions for broad health reasons. In blasting Harris over her policy positions, Republicans have instead focused on other issues where she has waffled, including her past support for obliterating private health insurance coverage, decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings and banning fracking.
In contrast, Trump and other Republicans have struggled to talk about abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. Trump has both sought credit for appointing the judges that tipped the decision while also trashing states that he said went too far in their abortion restrictions. During the primary last year, he called Florida’s six-week ban a “terrible mistake.”
Over the weekend, Trump initially seemed open to supporting Florida’s amendment protecting abortion rights because he said he wanted the gestational limit in the state to be later than six weeks. But then he rushed to declare his intention to vote against what he called the “radical” measure after speaking with anti-abortion leader Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. If the amendment doesn’t pass, most abortions will remain illegal after six weeks — though future state legislators could still make alterations to the law.
This isn’t the first time Trump’s record on abortion has been in the spotlight. Decades before entering politics, Trump called himself “very pro-choice,” but as he ascended to the top of the GOP nomination contest in 2016, he promised to appoint justices that were “pro-life.” That and executive actions such as blocking federal funding to international organizations that refer for abortions abroad led anti-abortion groups to regularly call him the most “pro-life president in American history.”
Though many in the anti-abortion movement have been dismayed at his post-presidential efforts to distance himself from the issue or to give confusing rather than full-throated statements, others have insisted that a Harris administration would be the worst-case scenario for their cause.
When Trump was in the White House, he supported outlawing abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He now says each state should decide how to regulate the procedure for themselves, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said Trump would veto federal restrictions.
The former president also has said he won’t block access to abortion medication, which patients receive through the mail after a call or video chat with a health care provider. Over the weekend, he promised if reelected that he’d mandate insurers cover IVF.
Nevertheless, Democrats on Tuesday accused Trump of wanting to outlaw birth control, abortion and IVF, using his wavering as evidence that voters can’t trust what he says. They emphasized that if the Trump-appointed justices had not overturned Roe then there wouldn't be open questions on such policies.
“He’s the one,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who spoke at Tuesday’s event, “who has gotten us into this mess.”
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