Donald Trump made an unexpected declaration Tuesday when probed about a six-week abortion ban that will soon take effect in his home state of Florida.
“We’ll be making a statement next week on abortion,” the former president told reporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The offhand remark put his team on the clock to weigh in on one of the most delicate and contentious issues in American politics. It came as news to some within his campaign, which only hours earlier released a statement on the Florida law, voicing vague support for “preserving life” and states’ rights.
Since launching his third bid for the White House, Trump has struggled to reckon with the political fallout from the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a sea change in the country’s abortion policy brought on by his makeover of the US Supreme Court. For much of the Republican primary, Trump avoided the topic, and when he did weigh in, he sometimes angered anti-abortion leaders by criticizing the rush of new restrictions from members of his party in response to the landmark decision.
Now, as he stares down an election against a Democratic rival eager to pin on him every pregnancy horror story stemming from new state-level abortion restrictions, Trump is inching toward taking a public stance on an issue he privately refers to as a “political loser.” He has spent weeks in conversations with advisers and friends discussing an approach while some of his top policy aides have quietly drafted the contours of a position that will attempt the seemingly impossible: embracing one of the most contentious legacies of his first term without risking a chance at a second one, according to multiple conversations with Trump’s advisers and allies.
Still unclear is where he’ll end up. Trump recently floated the 15-week threshold as one…
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