Republicans Are Betting That Trump Got His Abortion Position Right

In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion has become a defining campaign issue for Democrats and a thorn in the side of Republicans. The topic was once again at the fore this week, when former President Donald Trump on Monday stated his belief that abortion access should be determined by the states. After weeks of mulling support for a 15- or 16-week national ban, he chose not to endorse federal limits; however, he did not say how his potential administration would approach abortion access on the executive level.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land—in this case, the law of the state,” Trump said in a video posted to his social media site, Truth Social. He also touted his nomination of three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling himself “proudly the person responsible for the ending” of Roe.

With few notable exceptions, this viewpoint was quickly embraced by many Republican lawmakers. “I think President Trump is right where he needs to be, and importantly, where a majority of Americans are,” said Senator Thom Tillis.

Although the Biden administration is working to tie Trump to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe, it may be difficult to define him by any particular position on abortion. He is, in many ways, a political Rorschach test: Strong abortion opponents know he would nominate conservative judges, while more centrist Republicans inclined to support him see him as “culturally moderate,” said John Conway, the director of strategy at the Republican Accountability Project.

“[Trump] understands that pro-lifers and evangelicals will go with him no matter what and that he needs to try to neutralize the abortion issue in 2024,” said Conway. “There are voters who understand that Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do to maintain political power.”

Republican Senator Kevin Cramer said that he believed Trump had been speaking from the heart in his announcement on Monday. “It was authentically him. I think it’s where he’s comfortable,” said Cramer.

But Trump’s vague positioning faced a challenge just a day after his announcement. On Tuesday, the Arizona state Supreme Court ruled that a nineteenth-century law prohibiting the procedure could go into effect on Tuesday. The 1864 statute bans abortion without exceptions for rape or incest, and would allow physicians to be prosecuted for conducting the procedure. The ruling was instantly blasted by vulnerable House Republicans from Arizona, as well as GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, who had previously praised the law. Even Trump, who had just said that abortion should be left to the states, disagreed with the decision.

“It’s all about states’ rights, and it will be straightened out,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, when asked if the ruling had gone too far. “And I’m sure the governor and everybody else have got to bring it back into reason and that it will be taken care of, I think.”

Trump said later on Wednesday that he would not sign a federal abortion ban if reelected, contradicting his position in his first term in office. However, it’s unclear whether his administration would take executive action to restrict abortion.

It’s difficult to know exactly how much of a motivating factor abortion will be in the 2024 elections, particularly in such close races. Arizona is a critical swing state, with congressional races that could determine control of the House and the Senate. There may be an initiative on the ballot in November that would amend the state constitution to expand abortion access in Arizona. (A similar initiative will appear on the ballot in Florida in November, and may also go to voters in states like Missouri and Montana.)

Representative David Schweikert, a Republican from Arizona facing a difficult reelection, criticized the ruling as “functionally overruling the legislature.” However, he said that he did not believe the ruling would affect the Senate race or his prospects of reelection in November. “It’s the fever delusion of the left,” Schweikert argued.

This view was echoed by Republican Representative Ryan Zinke, the former interior secretary from a swingy district in Montana. The ballot initiative to expand abortion access is “a Democratic push in Montana to mislead, quite frankly, and get the vote out,” Zinke said. “I don’t think it will be successful.”

As far as Trump is concerned, meanwhile, it’s unclear whether any position he might take on abortion would stick to him in the long term.

“One of the political advantages Donald Trump has always had is that voters understand that this man is not an ideologue,” said Conway. “Because Donald Trump can’t be tied down on any ideological issues, voters see him as someone who’s fighting for their interests.”

This article first appeared in Inside Washington, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by staff writer Grace Segers. Sign up here.

Vibe check: Unpacking the “bold willingness to delay” impeachment

When I started reporting for this week’s vibe check, I did so under the impression that the articles of impeachment for Mayorkas would be delivered to the Senate on Wednesday. Democrats, who control the chamber, then likely would have moved to table or dismiss the articles on Thursday—thus putting the issue to rest. Bada-bing, bada–Bob’s your uncle.

But such a scenario was not to be. Under pressure from Senate Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed the transmission of the articles from the House until sometime next week. The outcome will likely be the same: All 51 Senate Democrats, and perhaps a small number of Republicans, likely will vote to table or dismiss the articles. Even if the impeachment did go to trial in the Senate, it would fall far short of the two-thirds vote needed to convict. So why delay the inevitable?

Short answer: Senators hate staying in the Capitol past Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Almost every week, there is a final vote at 1:45 p.m.; senators show up in jeans or other casual attire, ready to cast their votes and skedaddle out of the building. (This is why Thursdays are known on this side of the Capitol as “Senate Fridays.”)

This upcoming Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to address a joint session of Congress in the morning. That would have punted any consideration of impeachment articles to Thursday afternoon—right before senators’ flights out of town. As GOP Senator Mike Lee put it when he praised Johnson’s “bold willingness to delay” the delivery of impeachment articles: “Members will be less inclined to operate under jet fume intoxication on a Monday than they would on a Thursday.” (For his part, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible.”)

GOP senators are expected to put forward their own motions in an effort to put the pressure on vulnerable swing- and red-state Democrats to hold the full trial. Still, despite its ostensible political benefit for Republicans, an impeachment trial is hardly a thrilling prospect. It’s been a little over three years since Trump’s second impeachment trial and a little over four years since his first. As someone who sat through both trials—indeed, the inception of my vibe check came from that coverage—I can confirm that the senators did not enjoy them.

Still, Senator Kevin Cramer noted that Republicans were perhaps more eager to undergo an impeachment trial this time around than they were when Trump was under the microscope. “The issue of the border is just such a wonderful one for us to talk about as Republicans, that I think there’s a little more enthusiasm for it,” he said. “The House did it, so here we are, and now we might as well make the most of it.”

Republicans have also argued it would be a dereliction of duty to dismiss or table the articles. (Of course, they didn’t feel this way when Trump was impeached the second time, when the vast majority of Republicans voted to dismiss the trial.) Senator Josh Hawley, who himself introduced a resolution to make it easier to dismiss articles of impeachment ahead of Trump’s first trial in 2020, argued that successfully dismissing the Mayorkas trial would “probably be the end of impeachment.”

“A future majority that wants to get rid of an impeachment is going to do that. It’s just easy, it’s done,” Hawley said.

Some Republicans do acknowledge that impeachment has become an increasingly political tool, although they insist Democrats started it with their first impeachment of Trump, in particular. Senator Thom Tillis said that he wanted a full trial to occur in order to figure out whether the complaints against Mayorkas were legitimate, rising to the level of an impeachment, or born of anger with the current administration.

“There’s a lot of frustration there. I don’t know if that’s what motivated it, or if there’s really meaningful evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor. I just don’t think we’ll get to the point where that even gets considered or entered into the record on the Senate side,” Tillis said.

Regardless of whether Republicans are actually clamoring to sit through an impeachment trial, the articles have been approved in the House and will eventually be sent over to the Senate.

“In the Senate, we just have to respond to what the House does,” said Senator Mike Rounds. “The House is the emotional animal, the Senate is supposed to be the adults in the room.”

What I’m reading

Shōgun is reinventing the TV epic, by Phillip Maciak in The New Republic

Arkansas led the nation sending letters home from school about obesity. Did it help? by Kavitha Cardoza in NPR/KFF Health News

The RFK-curious women of Bucks County, by Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic

The deeply silly, extremely serious rise of ‘Alpha Male’ Nick Adams, by Ben Terris in The Washington Post

How Texas teens lost the one program that allowed birth control without parental consent, by Eleanor Klibanoff in The Texas Tribune

Fallout finds the fun in an apocalyptic hellscape, by Austin Considine in The New York Times

Pet of the week

Want to have your pet included at the bottom of the next newsletter? Email me: gsegers@tnr.com.

This week’s featured pet was submitted by border collie aficionado Gayle Davis. Here is 7-year-old Lyel, one of her four border collies, reclining in a “pose that he utilizes whenever he wants to appear relaxed but is, in fact, letting me know he wants to be doing something active,” according to Gayle.