Trump, in private, worries ruling could hurt Republicans
The end of the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling was the culmination of decades of work by Republicans and social conservatives — one that came to pass only after a thricemarried former Democrat from New York who had once supported abortion rights helped muscle through three Supreme Court justices.
Publicly, former President Donald Trump heralded the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday ending federal abortion protections as a victory. Yet Trump privately has told friends and advisers the ruling will be “bad for Republicans.”
When a draft copy of the decision leaked in May, Trump began telling friends and advisers that it would anger suburban women, a group who helped tilt the 2020 race to President Joe Biden, and would lead to a backlash against Republicans in the November midterm elections.
In other conversations, Trump has told people that measures such as the Texas state law banning most abortions after six weeks and allowing citizens to file lawsuits against people who enable abortions are “so stupid,” according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions. The Supreme Court let the measure stand in December 2021.
For the first hours after the decision was made public Friday, Trump was muted in response, a striking contrast to the conservatives who worked in his administration.
Vice President Mike Pence issued a statement saying, “Life won,” as he called for abortion opponents to keep fighting “in every state in the land.”
For weeks before the ruling, Trump had been just as muted. In an interview with The New York Times in May, Trump uttered an eyebrow-raising demurral in response to a question about the central role he had played in paving the way for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.
“I never like to take credit for anything,” Trump said.
Pressed to describe his feelings about having helped assemble a court that was on the verge of erasing the 1973 ruling, Trump refused to engage the question and instead focused on the leak of the draft opinion.
“I don’t know what the decision is,” he said. “We’ve been reading about something that was drawn months ago. Nobody knows what that decision is. A draft is a draft.”
By early afternoon Friday, Trump put out a statement taking a victory lap, including applauding himself for sticking by his choice of nominees. All three of Trump’s appointees to the court — whom he pushed through with help from Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate Republican leader — were in the majority in the 6-3 ruling. He left unspoken the fact that he repeatedly attacked the court for not interceding on his behalf after he lost the 2020 election.
“Today’s decision, which is the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation, along with other decisions that have been announced recently, were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court,”
Trump said.
The former president also told Fox News, in an interview published after the decision Friday, that the court was “following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago.”
He added, “I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody.”