Donald Trump—the most Christiany Christian who ever Christianed—can’t afford to lose another presidential election. So he’s compromising his deeply held moral convictions.
No, not on abortion. Trump’s never cared a whit about another person, much less a fetus. But given what Trump is looking for in a running mate—they need to commit constitutional crimes at his behest, grovel like dog-pound Pomeranians, and gaze adoringly at him like they’re beholding either the divine beatific vision or a distant Arby’s—he may have to bend at least a bit.
But Trump, who almost single-handedly tore reproductive rights away from tens of millions of Americans and brags about it constantly, is hoping to find a veep who won’t drive women voters away in droves. They also shouldn’t be on the hook for $83 million after having repeatedly defamed their sexual assault victim—especially if they’re residents of Florida. Because if there’s one ironclad rule of presidential politics, it’s that you need to balance your ticket.
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So Trump has quite a needle to thread, and he’s telling his cronies exactly how he plans on doing that. And the big takeaway is that his pick can’t be too extreme on abortion—because God may be vehemently anti-choice, but he’s even more vehemently anti-loser.
NBC News:
According to two sources close to Trump ... Trump has been laser-focused on the abortion issue, especially when it comes to his vice presidential pick. He sees it as the one major advantage for Democrats and a vulnerability for Republicans.
“The president understands it as a treacherous issue — one that you can actually trip up and fall on your face with,” said the source, a person familiar with his thinking. The person added that Trump would most likely not risk picking “someone with a six-week ban in their discussions or someone without any commitment on the exceptions.”
In addition to [Sen. Tim] Scott, the second source said, Trump has been asking about where other potential vice presidential contenders stand on abortion, specifically naming Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
Well, Trump has already convinced many Republicans to abandon Ukraine, so throwing abortion under the tank treads should be pretty easy. Of course, Trump has quite a yawning chasm to climb out of on this issue. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he promised to appoint forced-birthers to the Supreme Court. It was a shocking breach of long-established norms, but it may have put him over the top in that election—because at the time forced-birthers were champing at the bit for a more conservative court that could reverse Roe v. Wade, and too many pro-choice voters simply assumed that could never happen.
So now that the political winds have clearly shifted in favor of Democrats on the abortion issue, Trump is suddenly trying to sound more moderate, even going so far as to privately claim that he likes a national 16-week abortion ban because 16 is a nice, round number. And because that’s the cutoff that’s mentioned in the Bible—as far as most American Christians know. It’s in Two Corinthians. Right under the inspiring tale about God’s favorite prophet, Donald John of Patmos, righteously canceling his gravely ill nephew’s health insurance out of spite.
So Trump is now veep shopping—which, unlike grocery shopping, doesn’t require voter ID. But, unfortunately for him, the process poses its own serious challenges. For instance, is it actually possible to find a Republican with a moderate record on abortion—or on anything else, for that matter?
One potential name that’s been floated is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who has described herself as an “absolutist” on the abortion issue. In fact, as recently as January 2023, she cited her state’s own strict abortion ban, which recognizes exceptions only to save the life of the mother, as a model for the Republican Party.
For his part, Sen. Tim Scott has praised South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban, calling it “good news.” And while he was pretending to run for president, he said he’d “literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress.”
Translation: Even though Trump likely thinks Scott could help him with Black voters and Noem with ironing his shirts, those two are probably out.
“When you have the second-highest candidate for office on their ticket supporting these types of policies ... that is going to bleed into races all the way down ballot,” one Democratic strategist told NBC News. “You would see that in television ads in every state in every race. ... This just only makes our job easier.”
Another possible VP pick, Rep. Elise Stefanik, has supported a 15-week abortion ban. At least it’s a bit more in line with Trump’s thinking.
Three sources told NBC News that the abortion issue has been “eating at” Trump since the 2022 midterms, which were largely seen as at least a partial repudiation of the GOP’s extremism on abortion. “Abortion is Donald Trump’s singular focus in the book of issues,” one of the sources said. “He sees it as existential for the party. He understands how it plays in specific states. He understands how people have played it and won or lost.”
Meanwhile, Trump—who killed Roe v. Wade, admitted he killed it, and continually returns to the crime scene to leave more DNA and fingerprints—faces a steep hill when it comes to bamboozling voters. Especially since they’re continually reminded of the chaos and uncertainty his SCOTUS appointments have wrought.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s recent decision to nix in vitro fertilization treatments is just the latest manifestation of this chaos, and personal horror stories like that of Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was forced to travel out of state to terminate a nonviable pregnancy that could have harmed her health and left her infertile, are bound to surface more and more as the election nears.
And at what point does Trump’s obvious cynicism on this issue turn off forced-birth voters, many of whom sincerely believe human life begins at the moment of conception—not at the most palatable-seeming round number?
“It shows,” the Democratic strategist who spoke with NBC News said, that “what Democrats have been saying would come to pass since the fall of Roe is not hyperbole.”
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Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.
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