Donald Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that a national abortion ban would be “off the table” if he were elected president – but indicated that he was not closed off to the conversation and said “we’ll see what happens.”
In a sign of Trump’s vulnerability on the issue, he claimed that there was unanimous bipartisan support in favor of overturning Roe v Wade while saying that he was yet unsure of what he would do on abortion rights.
After Sunday Morning Futures showed a clip of last week’s interview with Melania Trump, in which she said governments should not have authority over women’s “personal business,” Bartiromo asked Trump directly whether Walz’s claim that the Republicans would introduce a nationwide abortion ban was true.
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“Let me just tell you, I think that it’s something that’s off the table now because I did something that everybody’s wanted to do,” he said. “I was able to get it back to the states. Every legal scholar for 52 years – they’ve been fighting, this issue’s been tearing apart our country. For 52 years they’ve been fighting.”
“Every legal scholar said it shouldn’t be in the federal government, it should be in the states and a vote of the people. Let the people vote. And I was able to do that because of six very brave and very smart [justices],” Trump added, referencing the Supreme Court’s 6-3 vote to eliminate Roe v Wade.
Bartiromo pressed him further, asking him to say on the record no such abortion ban would be introduced. Trump refused to.
“It’s very important to me to have the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan had the three exceptions: the life of the mother, rape and incest. And it’s gone back to the people. It’s gone back to the states. And now they’re working it out,” Trump responded.
“This is what every Democrat and Republican wanted. Everybody wanted it and I did it. Now we’ll see what happens.”
Trump then gave some indication that he has been poorly advised on how critical the issue is among Americans.
“I will say this, that issue has been, in my opinion, largely defused, largely defused.”
According to a New York Times poll in late August, abortion is the second biggest election issue for women across the country.
