Donald Trump's increasing statements that the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling that, for all practical purposes, overturned Roe v. Wade hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterms is setting off alarms with anti-abortion leaders who feel he is no longer on their side and that they are being played.
In a speech last week the former president took credit for putting in place three new members on the Supreme Court who had no qualms about throwing out Roe after fifty years which, in turn, created a firestorm and became a rallying point from Democrats in the 2022 election.
Likely with that in mind, in that same speech, the former president seemed to hint that abortion talk should be taken off the table until after the 2024 general election and that has anti-choice activists feeling betrayed.
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According to a report from Politico, "As his GOP opponents have seized on the comments, hoping to close a wide polling gap by attacking Trump as a fair-weather conservative, the anti-abortion movement finds itself at a crossroads — afraid of alienating the presumptive nominee but loath to let his remarks go unchallenged."
Patrick Brown of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Life and Family Initiative complained, "Are pro-lifers going to allow themselves to be a cheap date? Are they going to sit back and take it when candidates are denigrating the cause they dedicated their life to?”
Kristan Hamrick, the 38-year-old chief policy strategist with Students for Life of America warned the former president that her group plans to hold Trump's feet to the fire on the issue.
"He won’t feel pressure until it’s applied, and we’re willing to apply it,” she bluntly stated. “You cannot ignore the human rights issue of our time and still get our vote.”
Billy Valentine of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which plans to invest $78 million to get out the vote effort said Trump may lose some of those very voters they are reaching out to.
“Looking at a general, he’s going to need all Republicans to come home if he’s going to beat Joe Biden," Valentine explained. "He’s going to need the base in order to win ultimately, and he’s going to need a clear position. In the absence of a clear position, the Democrats are going to define him.”
Top Trump rival Gov. D Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is warning anti-choice activists that Trump is preparing to "sell them out."
“I don’t know how you can even make the claim that you’re somehow pro-life if you’re criticizing states for enacting pro-life protections for babies that have heartbeats,” he charged.
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According to a former White House correspondent who spent the Donald Trump years trying to get straight answers out of the ex-president's press secretaries, the media has been covering the ex-president wrong.
In a column for Salon, journalist Brian Karem argues that members of the press have been "moral cowards" by not properly covering Trump, who Karem says is "a fraud, a cheat and a rapist, facing 91 felony counts."
Karem famously asked Trump if he would honor a peaceful transition of power if he lost the election.
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"Trump is truly delusional. 'Brick by brick, Donald Trump is a fantasy. He's the biggest fraud there is,' political commentator Danielle Moodie told Mary Trump. Every bit of reporting we do on him should stress that," Karem wrote Thursday. "It's not like his delusion is a secret. 'We in the family knew it,' Mary Trump said, explaining the fraud perpetrated by her uncle — before describing him as the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on America."
The journalist then added:
"But don't count on the press to inform you about any of that. We're too busy pretending, and entertaining you by treating Trump as if he were a charmer, or a savior." It's not just the media, according to the reporter.
"It isn't just the press that is filled with cowards. The Republicans in Congress are repugnant criminal cowards. The Democrats are eunuchs and moral cowards. While the Republicans pursue Hunter Biden — and if he's guilty of something, so be it — the Democrats have not said one word about Jared Kushner, Eric Trump or Donald Trump Jr. There is more than enough evidence to investigate those three for trading White House access for billions in foreign investment. Yet so far, nothing."
He goes on to say, "The Democrats don't want to look like they're gutter-fighting quite as dirty as the GOP, and seem to lack any desire to pursue obvious corruption. Thus it appears to millions of American voters, including many potential voters still on the fence, that the Bidens have the most to hide"
"I cannot say it enough. We have two political parties in this country: One has no heart. One has no head," he added Thursday. "And the press? We have neither."