Donald Trump at a rally on May 1 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Donald Trump lies, about everything imaginable. Especially on abortion. So his recent insistence to Time magazine that he opposes a federal abortion ban is meaningless.
He’s also a lazy liar. So the most important comment he made in the Time interview is this one: “I won’t have to commit to [an abortion ban] because it’ll never—number one, it’ll never happen.” He’s right; Republicans will almost certainly never have the Senate votes to get a national ban to the desk of President Trump, in the horrifying and unlikely event he is elected again. “And you know what?” he added. “That’s taken tremendous pressure off everybody.”
Whew!
On the other hand, our lazy liar can do a lot of harm to American women. What did seem newsworthy in the Time piece was his tolerance for red states’ punishing women who find a way get an abortion despite local bans. Writer Eric Cortellessa asked: “Are you comfortable if states decide to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned?” Trump answered: “I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”
It’s good to be the king. Always comfortable.
Maybe because I read the full Trump interview on the day Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect, leaving the entire South without reliably legal abortion except for the state of Virginia, I found his smarmy indifference sickening. Cortellessa presses further: “Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?”
“I think they might do that,” Trump responds ominously. (How? Fertility tracking software? Spying on doctors’ offices?) “Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.”
The reporter comes back: “States will decide if they’re comfortable or not…prosecuting women for getting abortions after the ban. But are you comfortable with it?”
“It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not,” he insists. “It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”
Let me translate: Trump is utterly comfortable with red states’ using whatever power they can muster to prosecute women who seek abortion where it’s legal—including “monitoring women’s pregnancies,” whatever that means.
But Trump refused to say whether he supports restrictions on medication-abortion, or whether and how he’ll vote on the November abortion access referendum on the ballot in Florida, where he lives. He’s comfortable with his mantra—“It’s up to the states!” on abortion—even as he promises to send red-state National Guard troops to blue states to deport people here without documentation.
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I actually took something good away from Trump’s abortion cowardice: He’s afraid of us. Why won’t he say he’ll vote against Florida’s abortion-rights-expanding referendum? Why won’t he tell us where he stands on medication abortion? Why won’t he promise to send red-state National Guards to enforce abortion laws on women who might travel to blue states?
The entire interview is a shit show, but the reporter is admirable nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed Trump’s insisting our second Catholic president’s administration is “against Catholics”—it’s not; Biden personally attends Mass at least once a week —and insisting “there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country.” There isn’t. It’s anti-Trump feeling. Much of the interview is garbled and hard to follow, which is a function of the deranged ex-president’s speech troubles, not the reporter’s skill.
Bizarrely, though, Time compiled a “short read” of the Trump interview that got his abortion position totally wrong, asserting: “For years now, many have assumed Trump supports finishing what he started, and restricting abortion access across the country…. But that’s not where Trump’s position lies anymore.”
We don’t know where Trump’s abortion position lies—except beneath many layers of lies. All Trump did in his interview with Cortellessa was acknowledge his cowardice on the issue. He’ll defer to the states—unless he gets a chance to do something to implement a national ban. It was depressing to see Time fumble the scoop it had that way.
Joan WalshTwitterJoan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America. Her new book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power and Wealth In America.