Dem
51
GOP
49
Some Republicans want something, namely banning abortion, that most of the country does not want. How should they deal with this problem? They are reaching into their toolbox and looking for the best tool for the job. And the best tool is simply lying about what they will do if elected.
Yesterday, Donald Trump said that if Congress passed a national abortion ban, he wouldn't sign it. That is a total lie, of course, but you are not supposed to say that in polite company. If the Republicans managed to hold the House, win the Senate, abolish the filibuster, and then pass a bill to ban abortion nationwide and Trump vetoed it, the blowback would dwarf a category 5 hurricane. His base and Republicans in Congress would be beyond furious. They finally got their dream and Trump killed it, for no reason at all? It is absolutely inconceivable that Trump would alienate his base and members of Congress and veto the bill. If he did that, there is even a chance the House would impeach him and the Senate would convict him if the vice president said that he or she would sign the abortion bill. Chances like that don't come along every day.
So why is he telling what is almost certainly an outright lie? He knows that the base has nowhere else to go and besides, probably most of them expect him to sign the bill no matter what he is saying now. But there could be some gullible moderates who hear this and believe it. They are his prey, only they don't know it.
To some extent, evidence that Trump doesn't mean a word of what he says about abortion is given by his long history of comments about abortion. On March 1, 2016, he said: "Planned Parenthood has done very good work for millions of women. But we're not going to allow and we're not going to fund, as long as you have the abortion going on at Planned Parenthood." On March 30, 2016, at a town hall, Trump was asked if women should be punished for seeking an abortion and he said "Yes." On Oct. 19, 2016, during a debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump said: "The justices that I am going to appoint will be pro-life, they will have a conservative bent." In May 2017, Trump signed a bill allowing states to withhold federal money from organizations that provide abortion. On Jan. 24, 2020, he told a crowd at the March for Life rally: "Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House." The list goes on. He is clearly against abortion, entirely for political reasons, and his words yesterday ring as hollow as a bell.
To some extent, Trump's hand was forced by the Arizona Supreme Court decision, which de facto bans all abortions in Arizona. That is deeply unpopular there and in the rest of the country. Supporting the decision would cost him a valuable swing state, so he had to do something and making a meaningless announcement that might limit the damage seemed like a good idea.
Joe Biden's team is not going to be fooled by this outburst of moderation. Biden's communications director, Michael Tyler, said: "Trump lies constantly—about everything—but has one track record: banning abortion every chance he gets. The guy who wants to be a dictator on day one will use every tool at his disposal to ban abortion nationwide, with or without Congress, and running away from reporters to his private jet like a coward doesn't change that reality."
Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake (R) also saw the handwriting on the wall and disagreed with the Arizona court's ruling. She said the legislature and governor should work together to come up with a commonsense solution. By this, she means banning abortion via the legislative process, rather than via the judicial process. Of course, any bill the Republican-controlled legislature passed would be unacceptable to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) and she would veto it. (V)