Breaking: Trump Gives Up the Game

He supports states tracking women's pregnancies & arresting patients

In an interview with TIME magazine, Donald Trump admits that if reelected, he’d let anti-abortion activists do whatever they want. I wish that was hyperbole.

Trump, who has been trying to position himself as the ‘reasonable’ Republican on abortion rights, can’t help but give up the game the second a reporter gives him a few minutes to talk. He tells Eric Cortellessa that he’d support states tracking women’s pregnancies and arresting abortion patients, and he refused to commit to vetoing a federal abortion ban.

How many different times can Trump make clear that he’s an extremist misogynist before people finally take his word for it?

Trump says it’s up to state governments, for example, whether or not to monitor women’s pregnancies. In fact, he says, “I think they might do that.” That’s because Trump has undoubtedly been briefed by anti-abortion groups, who are ramping up their strategy around data collection and abortion reporting. He is well aware that tracking women’s reproductive health and pregnancy status is a big part of how anti-abortion groups plan to enforce their bans.

The disgraced former president also said he had no problem with the government prosecuting abortion patients, saying “the states are going to make those decisions.”

Trump seems to think that by giving states free reign, he’s washing his hands of abortion—an issue that’s become increasingly toxic for Republicans. In truth, Trump is admitting that he doesn’t really care what happens to American women, and that he’ll leave our fates up to the country’s most extremist legislators.

And despite Trump’s best efforts to pretend as if the federal government wouldn’t play a role in abortion policy, there’s a reason he wouldn’t commit to vetoing a national abortion ban: He knows he would sign one. Even if Republicans don’t have the votes for a traditional ban, powerful anti-abortion organizations have a plan to prohibit abortion in every state by using the Comstock Act and reversing FDA approval for abortion medication. Trump knows that, too.

As Reproductive Freedom for All president Mini Timmaraju said in a statement today, “Trump will choose anti-abortion extremists and their horrifying agenda over American families every single chance he gets, and this new interview proves that he will ban abortion in all 50 states.”

Now, none of this is a surprise. Feminists have been screaming from the rooftops that Trump would give anti-abortion groups and lawmakers anything they want if he got a second run at the White House. The only reason Trump has been able to pretend that he’s less radical than other GOP leaders is because mainstream media outlets consistently echo his talking points—giving his lie the credence it needs to deliver a 2024 win.

I think all the time about the former president’s interview with “Meet the Press” in September, where he said seven different times that abortion providers “kill the baby after birth” only to have the headline at NBC News declare that he wanted to “bring the country together” on abortion.

In spite of his bullshit messaging, Trump has a very hard time not admitting all. The question as we speed towards November is whether or not the people who shape the national debate will take him at his word rather than his talking points.

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