Donald Trump didn’t get the memo.
The former president responded Wednesday to the Arizona Supreme Court’s reinstatement of an 1864 anti-abortion law by poking fun at the fundamental issue.
When asked if doctors who provide abortions should be punished, President Trump acknowledged that certain states could.
“I want to leave that up to each state,” President Trump said. “You know, everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights. And what we wanted to do was bring it back to America, because we’ve been fighting for it for 53 years. And now the states are dealing with it. And some have dealt with it well and some will eventually deal with it.
“And those are things that the state will be making decisions about,” he said.
The answer was in line with President Trump’s efforts to avoid questions about specific abortion policies. Earlier in the week, on Monday, President Trump explicitly cast the issue as one of states’ rights, seeking to avoid having to take positions on other dangerous topics such as specific weeks or the punishment of doctors. did. That the state should handle policy is another matter. It is another thing to be essentially nonjudgmental about what is acceptable policy.
When the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated the 1864 law on Tuesday, the recklessness of that approach immediately drew attention.
The fact is that leaving this up to the states (some very red states) is likely to lead to, and has led to, policies that national Republicans would rather not explain. Despite the Republicans’ 2022 memo, some red states have also enacted laws that would make providing abortion a crime punishable by years in prison. A majority of the Senate Republican conference supported the bill, which would impose up to five years in prison.
It’s important to note that President Trump was not asked specifically about physician staffing on Wednesday. in prison, as the Arizona law threatens. The question was about broader punishment. But the context of the question was quite clear, given that this is one of the most controversial aspects of the law.
President Trump could easily say that two to five years in prison is too much. But he instead tried to make a big deal about Arizona overreaching — it’s not clear what overreaching — and leaving it at that.
Trump’s answer is especially puzzling given that he has stumbled on much the same issue before.
In 2016, Mr. Trump was asked by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews whether women who have abortions should be punished, to which he replied, “Yes.”
Matthews: Do you believe, in principle, in penalties for abortion, yes or no?
TRUMP: The answer is that there needs to be some form of punishment.
Matthews: What about women?
TRUMP: Yes.
Matthews: 10 cents, 10 years, what?
TRUMP: I don’t know. That’s not clear to me.
About 8 in 10 Americans oppose punishing women for abortions. Even major anti-abortion groups did not support the idea at the time. President Trump rescinded it within hours.
But the answer was informative.Trump has long been comfortable talking broadly about regime change. egg. When it comes to specifics and what is politically acceptable — three-quarters of Americans oppose making abortion a felony — he is out of his depth. His positions have changed significantly since the start of his political career, when he went from “strongly pro-abortion” to anti-abortion, and even during the 2024 campaign. Seven months ago, he called the six-week abortion ban “terrible.” Now he doesn’t say that anymore.
The problem now for the Republican Party is that this is such a divisive issue that they are looking for leadership and a way forward — to steer the party at a difficult time when the American people don’t like what the Republican Party thinks. We’re looking for a set of principles that will allow us to do that. They have exhausted their new ability to restrict abortion rights.
But President Trump is almost the only person who is so afraid of them that he refuses to lead them. And Wednesday was just the first taste of how that could go wrong.
