Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday night for the first time that he would veto a federal ban on abortionA position he avoided to declare and is likely to upset his anti-abortion supporters.
In the middle of the vice-presidential debate, Trump job to social media that “everyone knows that I would in no way support a federal ban on abortion, and would in fact oppose it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters ( the will of the people!)”
Trump had not yet said whether he would veto a nationwide ban. His running mate, Senator JD Vancesaid in August that the former president would veto a national abortion ban, but Trump declared during the debate on September 10 with Vice President Kamala Harris, “I haven’t discussed it with JD.”
During that same debate, Harris said, “Understand that if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he would sign a national ban on abortion. »
Trump responded that it was a “lie” and that he “wasn’t signing a ban, and there was no reason to sign a ban because we got what everyone wanted.”
Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
Democrats have attempted to tie Trump to abortion restrictions passed in 22 states since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, as well as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 initiative. Blueprint 2025 states that “the next conservative president should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent lives and vigorously complying to statutory bans on federal funding of abortion. »
Trump had bragged about appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who played a crucial role in overturning Roe v. Wade. In August, Trump said he would vote against a proposed constitutional amendment in Florida that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban. However, a few days before, he had said in an interview that six weeks “is too short.”
“More time is needed,” he said at the time. “I’m going to vote that we need more than six weeks.”
He insisted that giving states the power to legislate on abortion was what people wanted.
In Tuesday’s debateVance said he has never supported a national ban, although he said during his 2022 Senate bid that he “certainly would like to see abortion be illegal nationwide.” Vance also took issue with moderators calling a 15-week federal restriction a “ban,” saying he supported a “minimum national standard.”
Trump’s message Tuesday also falsely claimed that Democrats support late-term abortions and the “execution” of babies after birth, a false claim he repeated on the campaign trail.
Melissa Quinn contributed to this report.
