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Former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.C.) and various anti-abortion advocates visited Mar-a-Lago and spoke with him by phone. By taking such a position, they told him, he was tacitly supporting some states that allow abortion up to birth. Mr. Conway advanced a different argument. Mr. Trump would also tacitly support states such as South Dakota, Arkansas and Florida with early pregnancy bans that he considered too restrictive and politically problematic. If he took a position that would ban abortions after 15 weeks, she argued, he would be able to make a convincing case against Democrats who support abortions beyond that date.
President Trump listened to the debate for nearly a year, including on a recent weekend. For months, he consulted advisers about the 16-week limit, according to four people who spoke with him.
“How about 16?” he said during one meeting. “I don’t want a 15-year-old. A 16-year-old is four months old.”
But some of his closest campaign aides urged him to stick to his campaign’s original position. Anti-abortion voters would support him anyway, they argued, and supporting a nationwide ban would further entangle Republicans in an issue that is politically damaging. . Some Republican senators lobbied Trump, saying such a position could hurt both him and themselves in battleground states, according to people close to the president.
A year after his campaign’s statement, Trump told allies he wanted to release a video in his own words that stuck to his original position. This was in part to quell questions and meetings about what Trump called “one word.” Bad problem for Republicans.
“My view is that from a legal standpoint, abortion is happening wherever anyone wants it,” Trump said in a video released Monday. “Each state decides by vote, by law, or by both. “Anything they decide must be the law of the land.” morning.
Trump remained perplexed until the end, according to people who spoke with him. That left many guessing where he would land until the last moment.
“He’s been going back and forth between states’ rights and 15 weeks,” a source close to Trump said ahead of Trump’s announcement.
“Mr. Trump has a special ability to keep people on guard,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life group.
Trump believes anti-abortion voters will continue to give him wide latitude on the issue because of his record in office, people familiar with the calculations said. He believes that supporting a national ban would be politically harmful to the voters Trump needs to win over.
Trump has complained that Republicans are hurting themselves on the issue, calling it a “bad issue,” according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. At one point, he asked a group of conservative activists who pushed for a national ban late last year why they weren’t more grateful for what he had already done, saying they should fight it at the state level.
Trump is in many ways an unlikely champion of the anti-abortion cause, even declaring himself “pro-choice in every way” decades ago. However, when seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, he took an opposing stance and made headlines at a town hall, saying that if abortion is illegal, women who undergo it should be subject to “some kind of punishment.” Became.
As president, he made good on campaign promises and appointed Supreme Court justices that he later overturned. Roe vs. Wade and end abortion rights nationwide. It was a seminal achievement for the anti-abortion community.
President Trump said in a video Monday that he was “proudly” responsible for ending the war. egg. But he has since recognized the price Republicans paid with their votes. During the 2024 Republican primary, he dodged questions about whether he would sign federal abortion regulations, sometimes promising — improbably — to find a cap that would satisfy all sides. . “We will make a deal,” he told one of the activists who was speaking about the issue.
He blames abortion for the Republican Party’s defeat and has questioned his advisers and members of Congress about how abortion affects the president. Race.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly complained privately that some Republicans won’t say from the outset that they support exceptions to the ban, and that the exceptions “are not going to be a detail,” according to a person in contact with him. He emphasized that. Trump has also commented in recent weeks that too many state bans are too restrictive, the person said.
In the words of one adviser, multiple advisers said President Trump was “thinking about the general election.”
He risked angering influential social conservatives by calling Florida’s six-week stay-at-home order “terrible.” Leaders of the anti-abortion movement were stunned in February by a New York Times report that said President Trump liked the idea of a 16-week federal limit with exceptions, which infuriated the Trump campaign. He insisted that he had not made any decisions due to concerns about the general election. .
In a radio interview last month, President Trump said, “The people have agreed to Article 15, and I am considering Article 15 based on that.” At the time, he said he had privately introduced such a ban, but said the public agreed that “this is a national issue.”
Trump appears to have been correct in his calculation that most conservative groups and members of Congress would not criticize him.
The sharpest critic was former Vice President Mike Pence, who ran against Trump but dropped out of the 2024 primary before the first votes were cast. He called it “a slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans” and “a setback on the right to life.”
But most others argued that President Trump was a better option than President Biden, even if his comments were disappointing. Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, said she supports federal restrictions on abortion, but that she would do so. He still supports Trump because of his record while in office.
Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, said that supporting the federal government’s 15-week limit is a litmus test for candidates to receive the group’s support, but that the group is “deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position.” I am disappointed,” he said on Monday. But she didn’t say it was morally indefensible, saying pro-life grassroots “will work tirelessly to defeat President Biden.”
Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said in a recent interview that his organization is “unashamedly pro-life,” but he listens to many activists who see political barriers to their abortion goal. He said he is doing so.
Roberts said activists should “win elections on the things that win elections: the economy, borders, lack of security in our cities. Let’s leave the debate about abortion on the back burner.”
Some abortion opponents are planning ways for President Trump to restrict access to abortion without Congress. Many are focused on possible actions federal agencies may take, such as overhauling the approval of abortion pills or blocking abortion pills from being mailed.
“The incoming administration’s actions will revolve around reversing the Biden administration’s actions on abortion, not national pregnancy protections,” said Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. .
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said he still believes President Trump will sign anti-abortion legislation if presented to him and that voters should try to elect anti-abortion Republicans in Congress. He said, “I take the president’s statements in commas, not periods.”
Graham, a supporter of the 15-week federal ban and who has lobbied President Trump on the issue, said “states’ rights alone” is as outdated as the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision. said it would be. dred scott A lawsuit concluded that enslaved people could not claim U.S. citizenship.
“I respectfully disagree with President Trump’s statement that abortion is a states’ rights issue. dobbs “There is no legal requirement for such a conclusion, and the pro-life movement has always been about the welfare of the unborn child, not about geography,” Graham said Monday.
Trump was quick to attack the ruby-red South Carolina senator, noting that Graham often gets booed when he appears with him.
“Senator Lindsey Graham is doing great damage to the Republican Party and our country. Initially he did not want abortions under any circumstances, but then he went on to say that abortions are allowed up to six weeks after birth. , now abortions are allowed up to 15 weeks, but what he doesn’t understand, or maybe he’s destroying our country, is that the radical left Democrats will never approve of what he or the Republicans want. You won’t,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social.
But Democrats have made it clear that they will attack Trump over abortion, regardless of the details of his 2024 platform. They are constantly reminding voters of his vital role. egg’When a court cleared the way for Florida’s six-week stay-at-home order last week, Biden doubled down on Trump’s past boast that “there’s no six weeks without me.”
Biden: “You’ve already made a statement, Donald.” answered on social media.
Democrats see abortion as a key election issue and are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on abortion in the fall.
A person close to the former president, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said his team is closely monitoring how the Biden campaign attacks Trump on abortion in battleground states. .
On Monday, Democrats pounced on President Trump’s statement, insisting that the president supports all bans. It’s the same argument Mr. Conway has made privately.
Biden said in a statement that Trump was responsible “more than anyone else in America” for the “atrocity and chaos” that followed. low’s Died.
Michael Scherer, Paige Winfield Cunningham and Michelle Boorstein contributed to this report.
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