A well-known anti-abortion extremist appears to be providing political cover for Donald Trump, playing up a supposed break from the former president due to his purported softening on the issue.
Lila Rose, founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, gave a long interview to Politico Magazine on Thursday, the gist of which Politico says is her assertion that “it is not the job of the pro-life movement to vote for President Trump.” Politico liked that line so much they made it the headline, naively taking her at her word. Rose cut her activist teeth working with James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas in their doctored “sting” videos against Planned Parenthood.
But a close reading of the interview clues us into the game she’s playing.
Take for example what happens when she asked if she’s voting for Trump:
So just to be clear, as things currently stand, you don’t plan to vote for Trump. Is that correct?
I am going to see how the next few weeks unfold.
But if the election were today?
I’m going to see how the next few weeks unfold. The election is not today. … If the election were today, I would not vote for [Kamala] Harris or Trump based on their policies and their statements and their positions.
By focusing on the “today” aspect of the question, she avoids denying that she won’t eventually vote for Trump.
But you’re urging anti-abortion voters to follow your lead in withholding support for him right now?
I’m urging President Trump—and Harris, for that matter, though she has refused to hear any of this—I’m urging President Trump to change course.
Trump could win her over if he drops a “September or October surprise where Trump comes out swinging for human life,” she tells Politico.
But he doesn’t need to do that. The anti-abortion movement knows as well as anyone—except Politico, apparently—where Trump stands on abortion. His own words about abortion—not to mention the plans laid out for him in the authoritarian Project 2025 agenda—can’t be disputed. In 2016, he said those who seek abortions should be subject to “some form of punishment.” After facing severe backlash, he walked back that position, but the words are there.
Beyond just words, he seated three of the conservative Supreme Court justices who eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, fulfilling a campaign promise he made to the anti-abortion movement in 2016.
Recently, he said he has “no regrets” about overturning Roe v. Wade. In fact, he’s often bragged about it. “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” he said in May 2023.
Rose is doing what the anti-abortion forces have long done with Trump. Consider the supposed fury from Rose and others at him over the Republican National Committee’s platform on abortion. By setting out their opposition to it, they helped create the narrative from the traditional media—including The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, NBC News, and yes, Politico—that Trump was leading the GOP in “softening” the RNC’s anti-abortion position.
In fact, the platform enshrines fetal personhood through a radical interpretation of the 14th Amendment, considering a fertilized egg to be a person. This is a longtime goal for the anti-abortion movement—and one it’s secured through this platform.
Rose and her fellow anti-abortion extremists know all this. They know, too, what Trump would do in office. If lying about not supporting him now helps pull the wool over voters’ eyes, they know the traditional media will help them do it.
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