Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said in an interview Friday that former President Trump's “contradictory” stance on abortion issues “puts him in a difficult position.”
“He's done a great job over the last nine years of saying two contradictory things at the same time and making sure everyone at the table has enough to eat,” Scaramucci said. said Alex Marquardt, host of CNN's “The Situation Room.”
“He's in trouble, and he knows it,” he continued. “An interesting conversation that you all had before the break is that it would be very hard for a woman, even a conservative woman, to give up reproductive freedom. [Ohio Sen.] J.D. Vance [R] And Donald Trump. And he knows it.”
“He has very good political instincts, so this is a sticking point for him right now,” Scaramucci added.
The comments came after Trump said he would not vote for a planned Florida ballot measure that would block future laws restricting abortion access in the state and overturn the state's current ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The former president has previously suggested the ban was “too short.”
“Six weeks … I think we need a lot longer. I've been against it since I heard about it early on in the primaries,” Republican presidential nominee Trump told Fox News' Brian Lenas on Friday. “At the same time, Democrats are being extreme because nine months is an absurd situation.”
“All this is unacceptable, which is why I will be voting no,” he added.
Scaramucci also suggested his former boss had “gaslighted” people through his wavering stance on the issue.
“That's exactly what he's doing right now,” a former White House official said. “He's issuing statement after statement, word after word.”
“The conservatives in this party are calling him and saying, 'You can't do that. A lot of the pro-life conservatives are not going to vote for you. Your approval rating is a low 47.5 percent and you've never broken through before. We need every single one of those votes,'” he continued. “So he falters, and then he comes back and says what he said today.”
Despite the backlash over the issue, President Trump has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, which returned abortion rights to the states. Earlier this month, the former president said he had “no regrets” about the Republican-majority Supreme Court ruling against federal abortion rights.
The Hill has reached out to Vance and the Trump campaign.
