Former President Donald Trump declared he would not sign a national abortion ban if the legislation were sent to his desk in a second term and asserted that an Arizona Supreme Court ruling upholding an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions in the state went too far.
“Yeah, they did,” Trump told reporters about the ruling issued on Tuesday during an impromptu press conference in Atlanta on Wednesday morning. “It’s all about state’s rights. It’ll be straightened out. I’m sure the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back within reason.”
Trump declared he would not sign a national abortion ban when asked by a reporter, shaking his head “no” twice when pressed. The declaration from Trump is his most direct answer on the matter since launching his reelection campaign.
The former president was also asked about Florida’s Supreme Court allowing a six-week abortion ban to go into effect. Trump responded it was “probably maybe going to change” and that Arizona was “definitely going to change.”
“It’s the will of the people. This is what I’ve been saying. It’s a perfect system,” Trump said. “So, for 52 years, people have wanted to end Roe v. Wade to get it back to the states. We did that. It was an incredible thing, incredible achievement. We did that. And now the states have it. And the states are putting out what they want.”
The Biden campaign quickly denounced Trump’s comments in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
“Donald Trump owns the suffering and chaos happening right now, including in Arizona, because he proudly overturned Roe — something he called ‘an incredible thing’ and ‘pretty amazing’ just today,” Biden communications director Michael Tyler said. “Trump lies constantly — about everything — but has one track record: banning abortion every chance he gets. The guy who wants to be a dictator on day one will use every tool at his disposal to ban abortion nationwide, with or without Congress, and running away from reporters to his private jet like a coward doesn’t change that reality.”
Florida’s Supreme Court also ruled that an abortion measure be allowed on the November ballot, while abortion-rights organizers in Arizona are working to get an abortion measure on the ballot as well.
In a separate statement later, Trump said he thinks the decision on whether a doctor should be punished for performing an abortion should be left to the states to decide.
“Let that be to the states,” Trump told MeidasTouch. “You know, everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights. And what we wanted to do is get it back to the states because, for 53 years, it’s been a fight, and now the states are handling it.”
The Arizona Supreme Court ruling only allows exceptions for an abortion in the case of saving a mother’s life due to an emergency. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) denounced the ruling and called for the 1864 law to be repealed.
Trump’s comments echoed a Monday statement on abortion in which he called for states to determine how far to restrict abortion access, angering some anti-abortion members of his coalition.
Trump also brushed off concerns about his financial disadvantage against President Joe Biden ahead of a fundraising luncheon in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday.
“We don’t need nearly the money that they need. In Florida, as an example, I put up a very small amount of money,” Trump said. “They put $300 million into Florida. I put peanuts into Florida, and I won by 2 million votes.”
The Atlanta luncheon follows on the heels of a more than $50 million fundraiser Trump participated in over the weekend in Florida after Biden raked in $26 million during a Radio City Music Hall fundraiser in New York with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton last month.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee have greatly outraised Trump and the Republican National Committee. In March, Biden and the DNC raised $90 million and had $192 million cash on hand compared to Trump and the RNC raising $66 million in March with $93 million cash on hand.
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But it appears that GOP megadonors are coming to Trump’s aid.
Former Georgia Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are hosting the fundraiser in conjunction with Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus.
