Trump stands firm in belief that abortion cost Republicans ‘dearly’ in 2022 despite backlash

Former President Donald Trump stood firm in his belief that the issue of abortion cost Republicans “dearly” in the 2022 elections. The comments came in his first public remarks on abortion since receiving criticism from conservatives.

Trump has been taking flak from conservative figures following comments he made during an interview in which he described Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) six-week abortion ban as “terrible.” Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa, the former president touted his record against abortion, though he maintained that Republicans must be careful with the issue due to potential negative electoral backlash.

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“Last year, I was able to do something that nobody thought was possible. And you have to really think about this and study this because it’s very important. We ended Roe v. Wade,” Trump said.

“You just think about it,” he added. “Because people have to get elected, we have to get elected. But I did something that for 52 years people talked, they spent vast amounts of money and fighting it, but they couldn’t get the job done. … They couldn’t get the job done. I got the job done. I got it done.”

Trump stressed the importance of the issue being “returned to the states,” and he said the “pro-life community has tremendous negotiating power. You had none when you had Roe v. Wade. They could do whatever they want.”

Trump then drew a direct comparison between himself and President Ronald Reagan, saying that both of them supported exceptions on abortion for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Other positions had the danger of jeopardizing the Republicans’ standing in elections, he warned.

“Without the exceptions, it is very difficult to win elections. We would probably lose the majorities in 2024 without the exceptions, and perhaps the presidency itself,” Trump said.

“But you have to follow your heart regardless, you have to follow your heart — can’t do it for just the election,” he said. “But you have to follow your heart. The same time, we have to win elections. Otherwise, we’ll be back where we were. In order to win in 2024, Republicans must learn how to properly talk about abortion.”

He then used the examples of Pennsylvania and Michigan, saying candidates got “clobbered” because they didn’t know how to “properly talk about abortion.” He countered that the Republican strategy should be to “expose” Democrats as “the true radicals.”

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“We have to expose the Democrats like Crooked Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — that’s another great one — as being the true radicals, they’re the radicals,” he declared. “Pro-lifers aren’t the radicals. They’re the radicals on the abortion issue, and you have to say that, and that they allow the killing of babies in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth month, and they even allow the killing of the baby after birth.”

Trump’s ambiguity on what he would do about abortion if he became president and his labeling of DeSantis’s six-week ban as “terrible” caused him to receive extensive criticism from many conservatives, including elected officials such as Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA).