Trump strikes a deal on abortion

Former president Donald Trump announced on Monday that he believes abortion policy should be left to the states to decide and reaffirmed support for exceptions for rape and incest, declining to endorse much-discussed national limits on the procedure.The statement, which was shared on Truth Social, is set to disappoint pro-life organizations throughout the country. Many feared the Trump campaign would continue to move further away from traditional pro-life positions, including refusing to back policies such as a fifteen-week ban. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser expressed her deep disappointment after learning about Trump’s position, arguing that…

Former president Donald Trump announced on Monday that he believes abortion policy should be left to the states to decide and reaffirmed support for exceptions for rape and incest, declining to endorse much-discussed national limits on the procedure.

The statement, which was shared on Truth Social, is set to disappoint pro-life organizations throughout the country. Many feared the Trump campaign would continue to move further away from traditional pro-life positions, including refusing to back policies such as a fifteen-week ban. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s president Marjorie Dannenfelser expressed her deep disappointment after learning about Trump’s position, arguing that “unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections” and “saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats.”

Although Trump has opted for a fairly moderate approach to abortion, President Joe Biden immediately slammed Trump for being extreme on the issue. “Donald Trump made it clear once again today that he is — more than anyone in America — the person responsible for ending Roe v. Wade,” Biden said in a statement. He added, “Let there be no illusion. If Donald Trump is elected and the MAGA Republicans in Congress put a national abortion ban on the Resolute Desk, Trump will sign it into law.”

In a press call Monday afternoon, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez joined Kaitlyn Kash, a Texas mother who said she had her “health imperiled by an extreme MAGA abortion ban,” to respond to Trump’s announcement. The event focused on denying the veracity of Trump’s stated positions. The women suggested that leaving the issue to states to decide makes Trump responsible for or supportive of the most pro-life measures enacted (but, naturally, not the pro-choice ones), referring to “Donald Trump’s endorsement of the most extreme abortion bans that MAGA Republicans have passed or will pass.”

Evidence suggests the contrary, with Trump previously labeling Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s signing of a six-week ban more than six months ago “a terrible mistake.”

During the call, Kash blamed Trump for her difficulty receiving a “dilation and curettage” procedure due to changes in Texas law. She referenced a comment Trump made in 2016, when the then-candidate said that “there should be some form of punishment” for doctors who perform abortions in violation of state law, falsely alleging he wanted “women like [her]” to be thrown in jail.

The response from the Biden campaign demonstrates that they think it is crucial to portray Trump as a national-ban-supporting social conservative, despite what he has now said on the record. A Trump that is moderate on abortion is a Trump that Biden fears facing on the ballot, only underscoring the political pragmatism behind’s Trump’s new statement. Abortion is one of the most galvanizing issues for Democrats as voters focus their concerns on the border and the economy, especially among suburban women that seem to otherwise be breaking toward Trump in recent polls. Trump’s attempt to take the issue off the table for Democrats will certainly affect their strategy moving forward; only time will tell if their spin on his attempt to move to the middle on the issue is effective.

-Juan P. Villasmil

On our radar

HILLARY’S ‘REMINDER’ Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took a jab at Donald Trump on X, re-sharing a photo of the former president looking at the total solar eclipse in 2017 without the recommended protective glasses.

STUDENT LOAN RELIEF, AGAIN? President Joe Biden unveiled a new plan to wipe out more student loan debt, mostly targeting borrowers that have accumulated high levels of interest or have held loans for decades, one year after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s ability to forgive debt through executive action.

IN PORT SUPPLY The Baltimore port where the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being struck by a ship could be functional again by the end of May, Maryland governor Wes Moore said.

Project 2025 takes heat from Trumpworld

As America barrels ahead to a Trump-Biden rematch, the Democrats are honing in on one of Trump’s self-proclaimed biggest allies: the Heritage Foundation, and its incredibly public efforts — called Project 2025 — to build out a ready-made staffing apparatus should the former president win in November.

Those efforts have yielded robust profiles in liberal outlets like the New York Times, which covered Heritage’s “plans for ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’” But some Republicans aligned with Trump see warning signs as the effort gives Democrats ammo to attack Trump on social issues (such as abortion) that Trump is working overtime to take off the table. “Extreme anti-choice groups that are part of Project 2025 are pushing Republicans to gut access to IVF — and Republicans are falling in line,” the DNC warned.

Heritage claims to have vetted thousands of possible staffers thus far, barraging them with a range of policy questions and social media screenings — even though, ironically, Heritage’s president, Kevin D. Roberts, may fail such vettings with his own Twitter handle, which has a history of “liking” anti-Trump content, including videos posted by anti-Trump groups such as the Republican Accountability Project.

Multiple Republican operatives involved with Trumpworld have recently sounded the alarm to Cockburn about Heritage’s very public efforts to build out a Trump team. The Spectator even previously covered a warning shot fired by top Trump staffers that most view as an indirect attack on Heritage’s efforts last year, calling any outside efforts “purely speculative and theoretical.” Since then, the organization has shifted overtime to backing Trump. They recently brought Mary Vought, wife of former OMB director Russ, on board.

While having a résumé bank ready to go would solve a lot of problems that plagued the first Trump administration, by being so public with policy litmus tests the group risks becoming an albatross around Trump’s neck.

“Democrats are already tying some of the unpopular positions from Heritage staff members like banning IVF to President Trump,” one Republican consultant warned. “Biden’s re-elect is even attacking President Trump by citing things in Project 2025 that have nothing to do with the official campaign.”

However, not all transition groups are receiving Trumpworld’s rage. A source familiar told Cockburn that Trump’s team called other aligned organizations such as the America First Policy Institute to assure them they weren’t the target of his rebuke of unofficial transition efforts and that his comments were solely directed at Heritage. The private backbiting exploded into the open last year when James Bacon, a former low-level Trump bureaucrat, emailed his AFPI counterparts, lambasting them as a “Trojan horse by which the establishment can retake control of personnel.”

One Republican had a helpful suggestion to Project 2025: “The focus should be on helping President Trump win in November, not glamorous profile pieces.”

–Cockburn

GOP intel chair hits own party on Ukraine

As Congress returns to session and gears up for another round of deliberations on foreign aid funding to allies like Ukraine and Israel, a top Republican warned that some opposition to assistance to Ukraine from elected Republicans is due to “Russian propaganda.”

Congressman Mike Turner, the chair of the House’s Intelligence Committee, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “to the extent that this [Russian] propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is.” Turner was echoing claims by Congressman Michael McCaul, who told Puck News that Russian propaganda has “infected” parts of the GOP base.

Turner told Tapper that “there are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not.” Putin has famously described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” and many believe that he won’t stop at Ukraine, if he wins — especially with so much of Europe signaling reluctance to actually fund their own defense budgets.

But, things aren’t as simple as Turner claims. Just look at the evolution of Congressman Mike Waltz, a combat-decorated former Green Beret, and no fan of Russia, on the issue. Waltz went from arguing that America should “send Ukraine the damn MiGs” in 2022 to advocating for ending “the era of Ukraine’s blank check from Congress” last fall. Is Waltz succumbing to Russian propaganda, or reflecting a trend with the Republican Party? I’d suggest the latter, even though a lot of polling continues to show that sizable chunks of Republican voters support arming Ukraine.

The debate over foreign assistance comes at a crucial time for both parties; Democrats are growing in their opposition to funding Israel, thinking that telling our closest regional ally how to win its war will earn Biden a votes in Michigan, and Republicans continue to reckon with a faction that opposes some — or all — aid to Ukraine.

Remember that just last month, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene somewhat performatively threatened to oust Speaker Mike Johnson if he so much as brought Ukraine funding up for a vote. Needless to say, he’s got his work cut out for him in the days ahead.

–Matthew Foldi