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Former President Donald Trump said on May 16 that he would be able to reach a deal on abortion that the “whole country can agree with” if he were reelected to the White House.
“We’re in a position now where we can get something that the whole country can agree with, and that’s only because I got us out of the Roe v. Wade, where the pro-life people had absolutely nothing to say,” Trump told Newsmax TV, without providing details on the aforementioned deal.
When asked to elaborate, the former president indicated that he had put pro-life states in a “very powerful negotiating position.”
“Nobody thought it was possible to do what I did with Roe v. Wade and now, because of what I did, we have a very powerful negotiating position—more powerful, frankly, than the other side,” Trump said.
He added, “But on pro-life, I will tell you, what I did on Roe v. Wade, nobody else—for 50 years they’ve been trying to do it. I got it done. And now we’re in a position to make a really great deal, and a deal that people want.”
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June last year following a 6–3 vote. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the court’s majority opinion, said that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” and that “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Three of the six justices who ruled in favor of the state of Mississippi in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe, were appointed by Trump—Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.
“Today’s decision, which is the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation, along with other decisions that have been announced recently, were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court,” Trump said in a statement last year, following the overturning of Roe.
Trump also continued his criticism of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his recently signing into law a ban on abortions after six weeks, with exceptions for cases involving such circumstances as rape or incest.
“Now DeSantis, or Ron DeSanctimonious, as I call him, he came out with the six weeks. Other people agree with it. And a lot of people don’t,” Trump said.
In an interview with The Messenger published on May 15, Trump made similar criticisms of Florida’s new ban.
“He has to do what he has to do,” Trump said. “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”
On Tuesday, DeSantis responded to Trump’s criticism, and said the ban has widespread support.
“Protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost 99 percent of pro-lifers support,” the Florida governor said. “As a Florida resident, you know, he didn’t give an answer about, ‘Would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did, that had all the exceptions that people talk about?’”
DeSantis is considered Trump’s main rival for the Republican nomination in 2024. The Florida governor has not officially launched a presidential bid, but is expected to make his decision soon.
According to a poll by National Research Inc. that queried 500 likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters from May 15 to May 17, Trump picked up 39 percent of support, leading second-placed DeSantis by 21 percentage points.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu was third with 17 percent of support, followed by biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at six percent, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at three percent.
