(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that a new court ruling in Arizona upholding a near-total ban on abortion in the state, based on a 19th-century law, had gone too far and “needs to be straightened out.”
It was the latest example of how the 2024 candidate is now trying to balance his support for abortion opponents without embracing the broader bans that voters have been rejecting.
“It’s all about states’ rights and it needs to be straightened out,” Trump said in Atlanta, reacting to the ruling. “And I’m sure that the governor and everybody else will bring it back into reason and that will be taken care of.”
Trump also told ABC News that he will not sign a federal abortion ban if he is elected president again and Congress sends such legislation to his desk.
Asked about a separate Florida court decision earlier this month that upheld the state’s 15-week ban and paved the way for a six-week ban, Trump said his home state “is probably going to change” while again touting his role in the “incredible achievement” of overruling Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections and leaving it up to the states.
“We did that and now the states have it, and the states are putting out what they want. It’s the will of the people,” he said.
“Arizona is going to definitely change,” he continued. “Everybody wants that to happen.”
Trump would not say how he intends to vote on an upcoming ballot measure in Florida which would broaden abortion access there.
When asked explicitly about the November referendum, Trump quipped instead that he’s going to vote for Brian Jack, his former political adviser, who is running for a House seat in Georgia.
Later, during a visit to a Chick-fil-A, Trump said it should be up to the states to decide if doctors should be punished for performing abortions if they are illegal.
“Let that be to the states,” he said. “Everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights.”
Rival Joe Biden’s campaign responded by slamming Trump’s comments about Roe and suggesting his new position on abortion can’t be trusted because he “lies constantly – about everything.”
“Donald Trump owns the suffering and chaos happening right now, including in Arizona, because he proudly overturned Roe – something he called ‘an incredible thing’ and ‘pretty amazing’ just today,” Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said.
Biden was also asked at the end of a press conference on Wednesday: “What do you say to the people of Arizona right now who are witnessing a law go in place that dates back to the Civil War era?”
He was interrupted by reporters before he could complete his thought, but he appeared to be criticizing the ban for being so old.
The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday on the abortion ban drew differing reactions from state Republicans who previously claimed to be “100% pro-life” while both local and national Democrats vowed to push to protect abortion access in one of the most politically important states on the 2024 map.
Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to travel to Tucson on Friday for her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms.”
“Arizona just rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote – and, by his own admission, there’s one person responsible: Donald Trump,” Harris said in a statement on Tuesday.
Biden, in a statement through the White House, also blasted the Arizona ban, which only has exceptions to save the life of the pregnant woman. Biden called the restrictions “cruel” and the “result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.”
GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, who narrowly lost the governor’s race in 2022, said in her own statement that she supports Trump’s stance on abortion and claimed that as a senator she would oppose both “federal funding” and “federal ban[s]” on abortion.
However, Lake also regularly says she’s “100% pro-life” and supports “saving as many babies as possible.”
Asked last month how she would vote on a pro-abortion access initiative if it made it on the ballot in Arizona, Lake dismissed the question to simply say, “I’m pro-life.”
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