President Joe Biden pushed home the message that reproductive rights are not safe in Republican hands as he emphasised former President Donald Trump’s comments about being “proud” to have taken down Roe v Wade.
During a town hall event in Des Moines, Iowa on Wednesday night, Mr Trump boasted about removing the constitutional right to abortion, saying, “for 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v Wade terminated. And I did it and I’m proud to have done it”.
All three of Mr Trump’s Supreme Court justices voted to overturn the landmark 1973 decision in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022.
The Biden-Harris HQ account on X, formerly Twitter, wrote on Wednesday night that Mr Trump bragged about the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Mr Trump called the ruling a “miracle”.
Sharing a clip of the moment on Fox News, Mr Biden wrote on X: “Just like he said: he did it.”
California Democrat Ted Lieu wrote: “Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade and supports banning abortion. Biden opposes banning abortion. You will have a binary choice this November.”
The official account for Democrats posted an older quote of Mr Trump saying that women who get abortions should be punished.
Speaking about abortion during the town hall, Mr Trump said: “Nobody wants to see that happening after a certain period of time.”
“The radicals … they’re willing to kill the baby in eight months, nine months or even after birth. If you remember the former governor of Virginia where he said you kill the baby after the ninth month or even afterwards, you set the baby aside … These are the radicals … We are not the radicals. But we’re living in a time when there has to be a little bit of a concession one way or the other,” he added.
Asked about his criticism of pro-life Republicans after electoral losses, “You got to win elections”.
Christina Reynolds of Emily’s List, a group working to elect women Democrats who back abortion rights, wrote: “Trump’s abortion answer seems like a lot of word salad, but his comments about ‘you have to win elections’ make it clear: he’s ready to end abortion, he just wants to make sure voters don’t punish him for it.”
Mr Trump’s first White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer wrote: “Trump’s townhall response on how Republicans should message on abortion by going on offense and reminding voters that Democrats are the extreme ones – supporting abortion to birth (and after) – is the best of any candidate.”
Mr Trump’s comments were prompted by an abortion opponent asking him for “clarity” on the issue.
He said there is a case for exceptions, noting that “if you talk five or six weeks a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks”.
Media reporter Brian Stelter called it a “genuinely fascinating exchange – Trump spending several minutes trying to persuade a devoted opponent of abortion … to recognize political reality”.
