Dem
51
GOP
49
Former representative Tulsi Gabbard was never particularly believable as a Democrat. There is a reason that, when she ran for president, all of her support came from, well, non-Democrats. Anyhow, now that she no longer needs to get elected in blue, blue Hawaii, she's embraced her true identity as an "independent" who is really a Trumpublican. And, as you may have heard, she's out campaigning with Trump right now, after having been announced as a member of his "transition team" (along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) earlier this week.
Yesterday, Trump held a town hall in Wisconsin with Gabbard as "moderator." We are not sure who would take something like that seriously, since she's not in position to "moderate," what with being a bona fide member of the campaign and all. The event came shortly after Trump spoke to NBC News. And, in both the interview and the town hall, the former president declared that he is a big fan of in-vitro fertilization, and that if he is reelected as president, he will make either the government or insurance companies pay for the procedure.
It could not be more obvious what Trump is doing here. He has seen at least some of the polling like the Emerson poll above, and knows he is getting killed by Kamala Harris among young and women voters. He can't exactly come out as pro-choice (or, apparently, take any position on abortion access at all), so he's trying to glom onto the one reproductive freedom position that he might get away with and that might help him with pro-choice women.
Any voter who takes him at face value on this, of course, is being foolish. First of all, this new policy position came out of nowhere, almost like he thought of it during the NBC interview. He's presumably hoping that the anti-choice folks that make up his base will swallow hard and accept that he's just saying what he has to say in order to win the election. But if the evangelicals, or if Trump's advisors, squawk loudly enough, he will reverse course. It's gotta be, what, 50/50 that this even survives the week? That's why we call it a "policy" in the headline rather than a policy.
Further, should Trump get elected, and should he decide he's serious about this, we run into the problem that exists with pretty much all of his proposals: How will he take it from vague proposition to substantive reality? IVF is not cheap, costing well into the five figures. Where will the money come from if the government picks up the tab? Or, how can insurance companies be forced to cover the procedure? Neither of these paths is likely to get support from Republican members of Congress, who tend to be anti-government-spending, anti-new-rules-for-private-businesses, and anti-choice.
And so, even if Trump does believe in what he said (dubious), it's just vaporware, not unlike "Mexico will pay for the wall." We seriously doubt that pro-choice voters will fall for it, while the announcement might just alienate some anti-choice voters who might be getting a little tired of Trump not falling sufficiently into line. (Z)