Donald Trump has refused to give a straight answer on whether he supports a federal abortion ban, but that hasn’t stopped him from attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on his restrictive six-week ban.
Trump spoke to Kristen Welker for her debut as moderator of Meet the Press, where she asked him if he would sign a 15-week abortion ban if it came to his desk. The former president has previously been noncommittal on the issue, a trend that was apparent yet again during the exchange, though he maintained he didn’t believe abortions should be allowed later into a pregnancy—and falsely claimed that Democrats want to be able “kill the baby after birth.”
“I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we'll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t,” Trump said. “I mean, ‘DeSanctus’ is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.”
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Welker pressed Trump on his opinion on the Florida governor’s policy, which was signed in April. It gave Trump the opening to hit his presidential primary opponent for being overly limiting.
“I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” Trump said. “But we’ll come up with a number, but at the same time, Democrats won’t be able to go out at six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion.”
Abortions at the latest stages of a pregnancy are incredibly rare. The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in 2020, showed that less than 1 percent of abortions occurred at 21 weeks or later.
