CV NEWS FEED // Former President Donald Trump announced that if elected to a second non-consecutive term in November, he would not sign a federal pro-life bill into law.
The presumptive Republican nominee also expressed his opposition to Tuesday’s Arizona Supreme Court ruling, which upheld an 1864 law protecting almost all unborn children in the Grand Canyon State.
On an airport tarmac in Atlanta Wednesday, a reporter asked Trump, “Would you sign a national abortion ban if Congress sent it to your desk?”
“No,” the former president replied, while shaking his head.
The reporter asked Trump another time if he would sign a hypothetical federal-level pro-life bill. To this Trump again answered, “No.”
The exchange comes two days after Trump issued a highly anticipated statement clarifying his current position on abortion.
“The states will determine by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land – in this case, the law of the state,” Trump said Monday via a video posted to TRUTH Social.
“Many states will have a different number of weeks,” he went on. “[A]t the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.”
Many observers at the time stated that these remarks amounted to Trump opposing a so-called “national abortion ban.” However, Trump did not explicitly indicate he would oppose a national pro-life law until his comments on the Atlanta tarmac.
>> CATHOLIC PRO-LIFE LEADERS REACT TO TRUMP’S ABORTION STATEMENT <<
While Trump continues to assert that he believes abortion is an issue best to be handled by the states, he at the same time opposed the Arizona Supreme Court’s landmark decision to enact the state’s longstanding pro-life law.
Also on the tarmac, a reporter asked Trump if he believed Arizona’s highest court went “too far.”
“Yeah, they did,” the 45th president replied. “That’ll be straightened out.”
“I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason,” Trump added, referring to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a pro-abortion Democrat and self-professed Catholic.
On Monday, CatholicVote weighed in on Trump’s initial abortion comments, writing, “The federal government cannot abandon women and children exploited by abortion. Leaving abortion policy to the states is not sufficient.”
On Wednesday afternoon, The Daily Wire host Matt Walsh reacted to Trump and other prominent Republicans’ apparent pivot on abortion.
“If you tell me that as a matter of prudence and smart political strategy a Republican candidate should not call for a federal ban on abortion, I can buy that,” Walsh wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“But what we are actually seeing from many Republicans right now goes far beyond that,” he continued. “They are running to the Left, openly opposing even statewide pro-life laws, and preemptively surrendering the argument out of fear.”
“You can’t win pro-abortion votes by being mildly pro-abortion,” Walsh pointed out. “Those voters will always go with the Democrat anyway.”
“The pro-life case is incredibly compelling, but you have to make it,” he noted. “You cannot win an argument you refuse to have.”