Dem
51
GOP
49
Donald Trump has an almost feral understanding that he has to avoid certain topics to avoid angering his base. These include Social Security, Medicare, and abortion. Last week he said that abortion should be left to the states and some big-name anti-abortion groups went bonkers. They want nothing less than a total nationwide ban on all abortions. Trump understands that backing such a position would be fatal in the general election with independents. But the anti-abortion groups have now forced his hand by stating that they will not support any candidate unless that candidate supports a nationwide ban on all abortions after 15 weeks or less.
In an attempt to deflect their criticism of him for not defending a nationwide ban on abortion, on Saturday, in a speech in Iowa to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Trump tried to weasel out of this situation by talking about how he nominated three justices to the Supreme Court who voted to kill Roe v. Wade. However, he didn't directly address their demands.
The anti-abortion movement has indeed been moving in the past year—moving the goal posts. For years, their goal was repealing Roe. Now that they achieved that, they changed the goal to a nationwide ban on all abortions. Of course, Trump doesn't care one way or another about abortions. If he gets the next Stormy Daniels pregnant, he'll just buy her a ticket to Canada to solve the problem if it comes to that. He definitely doesn't want to adopt a position that will infuriate independents. So he has a big problem now. He has apparently decided that he can just finesse the issue by pointing out his Supreme Court nominees and hopes that will quiet his critics. We suspect it will not and he will be forced to talk about the subject more than he wants to in the next year. (V)