Vice President Harris, in a video obtained first by The Hill, blasted former President Trump over recent comments to a Pennsylvania television station in which he said states should be left to decide whether to monitor pregnant women.
“You have to watch what Donald Trump just said about monitoring women,” Harris said in the campaign video.
The video then features a clip from Trump’s recent interview with WGAL, an NBC affiliate based in Lancaster, Pa., in which he is asked about ads saying he would support state-level abortion bans that monitor a woman’s pregnancy.
“Well, that would be up to the states. Again, they will make a decision as to how they do it,” Trump said in the interview.
Harris blamed Trump for the end of Roe v. Wade, citing his appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices.
“And he believes that states can monitor women so that they can enforce their Trump abortion bans,” Harris added. “Under Trump, it is fair game, apparently, that states can monitor women. Whereas Joe Biden and I believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor.”
Harris has emerged as the top messenger for the White House and Biden campaign on the issue of abortion as Republican-led states have enacted laws restricting access to the procedure.
Trump has been adamant that states should be left to decide their own abortion policies, either through legislation or through ballot measures. He has also attacked Democrats as being too “radical” on the issue.
In an interview with Time magazine published in late April, Trump said it should be left up to individual states to decide whether to monitor women’s pregnancies or whether to prosecute those who illegally get an abortion. He did not say whether he would veto a national abortion ban if one reached his desk, saying it would not be necessary because states were determining their own laws.
In a subsequent post on Truth Social, Trump backpedaled and claimed he never said that some states “may choose to monitor women’s pregnancies to possibly prosecute for violating any abortion bans.”
“It is all working, will never go back to the Federal Government, and our Country will soon start uniting on this long contentious issue,” Trump wrote in the May 5 post. “At the same time, nobody wants to see abortion in the 7th, 8th, or 9th month or, execution after birth, as some states, like the former Democrat Governor of Virginia said, was permitted. Listen to your heart, but common sense must also be applied. Remember, politicians must also win elections!”
A New York Times poll published Monday underscored that abortion is one of Trump’s biggest political vulnerabilities, even as he leads President Biden in most key battleground states.
The poll found voters prefer Biden’s handling of abortion over Trump by an 11-point margin, 49 percent to 38 percent. And the poll found 64 percent of voters in battleground states said abortion should always or mostly be legal.
