President Biden on Friday accused former President Trump of trying to hide his views on abortion, as the Biden campaign jumped on a report that Trump supports the idea of a ban on abortion after 16 weeks of pregnancy.
The New York Times reported Trump privately told advisers and allies that he favors the 16-week ban on abortion that includes exceptions for cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.
Biden, campaign officials and surrogates seized on the report, saying it shows Trump is trying to hide his support for a national abortion ban by couching it in terms meant to appeal to moderate voters.
“After being the one responsible for taking away women’s freedom, after being the one to put women’s lives in danger, after being the one who has unleashed all this cruelty and chaos all across America, Trump is running scared,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “everyone sees through Trump.”
“We all know Trump promised to overturn Roe v. Wade to get elected in 2016,” he continued. ‘Does anyone doubt Trump has already cut a deal in private to ban abortion nationwide to get elected in 2024?”
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Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, told reporters that Biden’s allies won’t let voters forget that Trump was responsible for appointing the Supreme Court judges who ended Roe v. Wade.
“Trump wants to make abortion illegal in all 50 states with unthinkable consequences for all Americans,” Timmaraju said. “And he’s trying to masquerade as a moderate, letting his Republican allies take loss after loss on abortion and hoping that voters are going to forget that he was the architect fully responsible for overturning Roe.”
The Times also reported that Trump has said in private he wants to wait until the end of the GOP primary to publicly share his views on an abortion ban in order to avoid alienating social conservatives who make up a healthy portion of the primary electorate.
During the campaign, the former president has repeatedly blamed Republican losses on hard-line candidates who he said were too strict on abortion. He even criticized his former GOP campaign rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the presidential race last month, for backing a six week ban.
If he were to publicly endorse a 16-week abortion ban, Trump would be trying a strategy that failed Virginia Republicans in November. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) tried to rally voters around supporting “limits” on abortion after “a reasonable 15-week limit” with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.
But Democrats, running heavily on protecting abortion access, won control of the state Legislature.
“We saw Glenn Youngkin claim that he had found some sort of special sauce here, that they could rebrand on this issue. And the fact is that this is not a branding problem. It’s their agenda,” said Jessica Mackler, interim president of EMILY’s List. “That is the problem. And voters know that.”
