'Women are literally dying'
Trump quote that's 'coming back to haunt' him
A Donald Trump brag is now coming back to haunt Republicans, and they can't escape it no matter how hard they try, a former lawyer and current radio host said on Sunday.
Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney and host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program, “The Dean Obeidallah Show," appeared on MSNBC over the weekend to discuss Trump and his recent waffling on women's reproductive rights. Obeidallah in the past highlighted negative aspects of Trump's performance at the now-infamous debate with President Joe Biden.
The host noted Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) recent comments rejecting Trump's idea for an insurance company mandate on IVF, and Obeidallah responded by suggesting the Republicans know they are in trouble when it comes to women's healthcare.
And this week, Trump criticized a six-week abortion ban in his home state of Florida as too strict, suggesting he might vote for a November ballot measure that would overturn it. A day later, however, after conservative backlash, Trump said he would actually vote “no” on the measure so that the six-week limit would remain.
That prompted an immediate statement from Democratic nominee Kamala Harris saying, “Donald Trump just made his position on abortion very clear: He will vote to uphold an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant.”
Trump has sought to moderate his position but carries the baggage of helping to overturn Roe, the landmark abortion rights case, and this week he opposed an abortion rights measure in Florida after months of equivocating. Running mate JD Vance, like a host of other GOP candidates, has softened his stance — but found his past support for sweeping abortion restrictions hard to escape. And party leaders have been evasive on key policy questions such as their plans for abortion pill access.
“They have looked like a three-ring circus that’s badly managed,” said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime consultant to GOP candidates in Arizona, who laughed when asked if Republicans had corrected the problems with abortion that plagued them in the 2022 midterms. “It’s just terrible the way they’ve handled the whole thing.”
Trump, Coughlin said, wants to “jettison his legacy, which he can’t jettison. … He’s a deer in the headlights.” Trump has boasted of appointing three justices to the Supreme Court that cemented the majority behind the June 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe.
Led by Trump, Republicans in competitive races are rushing to frame abortion as a states’ rights matter, hoping to convince voters that the issue is not truly on the ballot this year. That is a sharp pivot from the message many in the party have pushed for decades — that abortion is murder and should be widely banned.
Many Republican strategists have successfully urged GOP candidates to moderate their public positions, and especially to distance themselves from an Alabama state court ruling that embryos are children, threatening access to in vitro fertilization. But as Republican-dominated states adopt sweeping abortion restrictions, these candidates have struggled to address their unpopularity.
Trump in particular faces the reality that while he touts his role in the Dobbs decision, that ruling is broadly unpopular. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in August found that 62 percent of Americans oppose it while 35 percent support it. And 59 percent said the abortion issue would be important as to which candidate they voted for.
The reproductive rights issue powered Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections, when the party did far better than anticipated and avoided a widely predicted “red wave.” Last year, Democrats, including Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, relied on the issue to help them prevail even in Republican areas.
Ballot referendums have only underscored that electoral potency. The abortion rights position has won all seven times it appeared on a state referendum, including in such conservative places as Kansas, Ohio and Montana.
"They understand they are going to lose badly in 2024. One of the main issues is Trump saying things like, 'I terminated Roe v. Wade and was honored to do so.' So this is coming back to haunt them," he said. "It's not a political issue. I don't think Republicans get it; nothing more personal than passing laws in states that force women against their will to carry a fetus to term."
He added, "Donald trump can't lessen it. Maternal mortality has gone up in the states where those bans are, women are literally dying because of these policies, so Donald Trump is empty, it's the worst form of politics."
