President Trump promised to help elect pro-life Republicans and further roll back legal abortion protections during a keynote speech Tuesday night at the Susan B. Anthony List’s Campaign for Life gala, an appearance that was as much a nod to his evangelical supporters as it was a campaign rally in a competitive midterm year.
“For the first time since Roe v. Wade, America has a pro-life president a pro-life vice president, a pro-life House of Representatives, and 25 pro-life state capitals,” Trump said at the antiabortion event in Washington, urging the crowd to keep Republicans in power.
The president took a series of shots at Senate Democrats, who have successfully blocked legislation in the upper chamber that would ban women from receiving abortions after the second trimester, and who have routinely offered little to no support for his conservative judicial nominees.
[Also read: Trump at Susan B. Anthony dinner says ‘Nancy Pelosi came out in favor of MS-13’]
“The story is 2018 midterms, we need Republicans,” Trump said, as he tore into vulnerable Democratic Sens. Jon Tester, Heidi Heitkamp, Debbie Stabenow, and Claire McCaskill for opposing the 20-week abortion ban. “If we work hard between now and November, every one of those states can be flipped.”
But if Democrats gain power, Trump warned they would seek to reverse his administration’s achievements on the abortion issue.
“We all know what a Democratic majority would mean, especially for the people in this room, on the Supreme Court,” he said. “And this is why you need to fight for victory in November… Every values voter must be energized, mobilized, and engaged.”
Shortly before the president took the stage, his administration announced that it plans to move forward with new restrictions on family planning services that allow women to terminate their pregnancies.
“For decades, American taxpayers have been wrongfully forced to subsidize the abortion industry through Title X funding so today, we have kept another promise,” he told the crowd Tuesday night. “My administration has proposed a new rule to prohibit Title X funding from going to any clinic that performs abortions.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the the Susan B. Anthony List, said the move would help GOP lawmakers “tremendously” in the November midterm elections.
“He has proven himself refreshingly predictable,” Dannenfelser told CBS News ahead of Trump’s appearance, predicting that his administration’s latest policy change would move the needle for Senate Republican candidates running competitive races in Missouri, Indiana and North Dakota.
“If we elect a pro-life Senate this year we have a fighting chance to do what the pro-life movement has wanted to do since 1973: to overturn the great stain on our national conscience, Roe v. Wade,” she said Tuesday evening, while introducing Trump.
A Marist poll earlier this year found that three-quarters of Americans favor greater limitations on abortion, including 92 percent of Republicans. Several states that Trump captured in 2016 have taken action at the local level since he took office to enact stricter abortion laws.
This includes Iowa, where Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill earlier this month that blocks women from receiving abortions once a heartbeat is detected. A total of 19 states approved additional restrictions on abortion during Trump’s first year in office.
The extended applause Trump received at the event served as a testament to the stunning relationships he’s developed with groups that once implored voters to choose anyone but him, including the Susan B. Anthony List, which warned Republicans ahead of the 2016 Iowa caucuses that “Mr. Trump cannot be trusted.”
“All my friends are out here,” Trump said, as he took the stage Tuesday night.
Several congressional Republicans also attended the gala, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, and Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who is running for Senate this year.
