Former President Trump said Wednesday that it’s “beautiful to see” states passing fragmented abortion laws, some more restrictive than others, suggesting it could unite the country even as Democrats use the issue to boost voter turnout in elections.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump was asked about issues Democrats want to focus on in the November election, including abortion.
In the two years since a conservative Supreme Court majority ended Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights have been front and center on the political agenda, with some states enacting abortion rights and others enacting restrictive laws that effectively ban abortion.
“Right now the states are deciding. And in many cases, like Ohio, by the way, they’ve become more liberal and more progressive than people thought,” Trump told Hannity. “But the people of Ohio decided. The people of Kansas decided. Now the people of the states are deciding.”
“And it took the burden off the federal government. The federal government had always wanted the states to decide. But Roe v. Wade didn’t do that. It left it up to the federal government,” he continued. “So now the states are voting, and in many cases they’re becoming more… liberal. In many cases, not all cases. In some cases, they’re going in the opposite direction. But the people are deciding. The people are deciding. And in many ways, that’s a beautiful thing to see.”
While President Trump has touted the death of Roe v. Wade by appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, he has also attacked Democrats as “extremists” for not supporting restrictions on late-term abortions.
“The states are making decisions right now, and I think they’re going exactly the way the people wanted them to,” Trump said, “and we’re going to have a country coming together against a very bad problem.”
Trump has said abortion policy should be decided by state legislation or voter referendum as Republican-led states enact restrictive abortion policies, drawing attack, including from some on the right who expressed dismay that the former president has not embraced a federal minimum standard on abortion.
The Biden campaign has repeatedly linked Trump to state-level bans, highlighting the stories of women facing life-threatening health conditions who were denied care or had to travel out of state for treatment because of the bans.
“Tonight in primetime, America saw Donald Trump raging and visibly shaken by a felony conviction. He has clearly lost his mind and his candidacy becomes more dangerous by the day,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement after Hannity’s interview aired.
“This is why the American people voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the first place, and why Trump will never set foot in the Oval Office again,” he added.
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