As former President Donald Trump blinks on the abortion debate, his likely top rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is taking a chance to fight him on a key 2024 election issue that’s shaping as much as be as divisive within the Republican primary as it’s going to be in the overall.
DeSantis, who is predicted to publicly announce his presidential plans in the approaching weeks, took a direct swing at Trump on Tuesday after the present GOP presidential frontrunner suggested that Florida’s recent six-week abortion ban was “too harsh.”
Asked about that remark, DeSantis said the laws he signed is something that “probably 99% of pro-lifers support.”
The governor noted that Trump had dodged on whether he would back that bill.
“As a Florida resident, you already know, he didn’t give a solution about, ‘Would you’ve got signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did, that had all of the exceptions that individuals speak about?'” he said.
“The Legislature put it in, I signed the bill, I used to be proud to do it,” DeSantis said, adding, “He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”
The governor’s remarks at a bill-signing event marked a rare rebuttal to Trump, who has spent months bludgeoning his potential primary rival with attacks which have mostly gone unanswered.
Trump was a fundamental catalyst for last 12 months’s lethal blow to federal abortion rights, as he appointed three of the conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. That seismic ruling made good on Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to place abortion regulations back within the hands of the states.
It was the biggest-ever win for conservatives whose opposition to abortion protections has been a rallying cry for many years. Nevertheless it drew a ferocious backlash.
Many citizens, incensed by the sudden lack of what had been a constitutional right for nearly five many years, flocked to the polls within the November midterms, and pro-abortion rights Democrats broadly outperformed expectations that had strongly favored Republicans. Surveys showed the high court’s ruling galvanized turnout amongst young voters, women and people voting in a general election for the primary time.
Now, as he looks for one more term within the White House, Trump has shown comparatively little interest in flaunting his record on abortion. When pressed to detail what his abortion agenda would appear to be if he won in 2024, the pugilistic ex-president has opted for a softer, less committed tone than a few of his competitors.
Trump himself underlined that contrast when asked in a recent interview concerning the six-week abortion ban that DeSantis has just signed in Florida.
“Many individuals inside the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh,” Trump said in an interview published Monday with The Messenger. He demurred on whether he felt the identical way, or whether he would sign an analogous ban.
“I’m all alternatives. I’m many alternatives,” Trump said.
He was similarly hard to pin down in a recent CNN town hall, declining to say if he would sign a federal abortion ban or what other policies he might favor as an alternative.
“What I’ll do is negotiate so that individuals are blissful,” Trump said, while defending his efforts that led to Roe’s reversal.
Trump could also be speaking with a general-election audience in mind: National polls are inclined to show most voters support abortion rights, especially following the Supreme Court’s ruling. Surveys also show voters consider the difficulty extremely essential to them.
President Joe Biden has taken notice: His reelection announcement video slammed what he described as Republican “MAGA extremists” who’re bent on “dictating what health care decisions women could make.”
But DeSantis’ willingness to hit Trump from the proper on abortion is also a strategic one. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found a robust majority of likely Republican primary voters, 68% to 27%, supported banning most abortions after six weeks.
Those numbers may very well be emboldening the governor, who otherwise has appeared to exit of his technique to avoid alienating the swath of Republican voters still highly sensitive to criticism of Trump.
Other candidates, each those that have declared their campaigns and those that are considering taking the plunge, appear to be making their very own calculations.
Trump’s former vp, Mike Pence, has reaffirmed his staunchly anti-abortion views as he appears to be inching toward his own White House bid. He has also come out against a widely used abortion pill, mifepristone, saying he wants the medication taken off the market.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who launched a Republican presidential exploratory committee last month, has said he backs a federal abortion ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Former United Nations Amb. Nikki Haley, meanwhile, distinguished herself by addressing the abortion debate head on, saying in a speech that the following president must discover a “national consensus.”
