President Joe Biden and his allies attacked Donald Trump over abortion after the New York Times reported Friday that the former president has privately expressed support for a 16-week federal ban, as Democrats center the politically potent issue ahead of November’s election.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told CNN the former president has not committed to backing a national abortion ban. In a statement in response to the Times report, she said Trump would “sit down with both sides and negotiate a deal that everyone will be happy with.”
But Biden and other Democrats have seized on the report, which says Trump has privately said he likes the idea of a 16-week ban with exceptions for rape, incest and if the life of the mother is in danger. The president argued Trump was trying to “rip away your rights,” while Biden was “running to protect them.”
“Now, after being the one responsible for taking away women’s freedom, after being the one to put women’s lives in danger, after being the one who has unleashed all this cruelty and chaos all across America, Trump is running scared,” Biden said in a statement Friday.
The president continued, “He’s afraid the women of America are going to hold him responsible for taking away their rights and endangering their rights at the ballot box in November. Which is exactly what’s going to happen.”
After the publication of the Times report, the Biden campaign held a call with reporters to blast Trump on the issue, and the Democratic National Committee was quick to put out a statement asserting, “Trump is making it clear that access to abortion for all women is on the ballot this November.”
Trump, who is marching toward the 2024 Republican nomination for president, frequently touts his role in overturning Roe v. Wade with his appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to eliminate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. He has noted the restrictive abortion laws that have since been enacted across the country were only possible because Roe was overturned, and points to the reversal of the landmark abortion law as a key achievement of his administration.
But Trump has not made abortion a key part of his campaign speeches and has steered clear on the trail from outlining any specific abortion legislation he would push for if reelected. In his recent campaign rallies, Trump has not mentioned the fall of Roe, and has made only a quick mention of his promise to “protect innocent life” if reelected.
Trump’s reluctance to stake out a clear position on the issue comes as he has publicly acknowledged abortion has plagued Republicans in elections since the fall of Roe and as he has criticized members of his own party over their messaging on the issue. He has denounced six-week abortion bans like the one championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his former GOP presidential rival, as “too harsh,” to the dismay of anti-abortion activists.
When Trump was asked about his criticism of a six-week ban by a voter at a Fox News town hall in January, he responded by saying Republicans “still have to win elections.” Trump noted that many Republican candidates who took hardline stances on abortion were “decimated” at the ballot box.
This comes in sharp contrast with Biden’s campaign, which has put abortion rights front and center in the 2024 race, with TV ads and a “reproductive freedoms tour” led by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans disapproved of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS in the decision’s aftermath. And a CNN poll conducted in November found that Americans align more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party on the issue of abortion.
CNN’s Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.
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