Donald Trump will not say if he would veto a national abortion ban when pressed on the issue in an interview with Time Magazine’s national politics reporter Eric Cortellessa.
In the interview, Cortellessa asked Trump thrice if he would veto a national abortion ban, but instead of answering the question, the former president insists that a federal abortion ban would never reach his desk because abortion is left up to the states.
“Just to be clear: Will you veto any bill that imposes any federal restrictions on abortions?” asked Cortellessa.
“You don’t need a federal ban,” Trump responded. “We just got out of the federal. You know, if you go back on Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade was all about—it wasn’t about abortion so much as bringing it back to the states. So the states would negotiate deals. Florida is going to be different from Georgia and Georgia is going to be different from other places. But that’s what’s happening now.”
“People want to know whether you would veto a bill, if it came to your desk, that would impose any federal restrictions,” Cortellessa repeated. “This is really important to a lot of voters.”
Trump again insisted that would “never happen” because such a move would require 60 votes in the Senate.
“You’re not going to have it for many, many years, whether it be Democrat or Republican,” he said.
“So just to be clear, then: You won’t commit to vetoing the bill if there’s federal restrictions—federal abortion restrictions?” Cortellessa pressed.
“I won’t have to commit to it because it’ll never—number one, it’ll never happen. Number two, it’s about states’ rights,” Trump answered. “You don’t want to go back into the federal government. This was all about getting out of the federal government.”
Trump also refused to commit to vetoing other extreme abortion measures including granting “full legal rights” to embryos at conception and banning the abortion pill mifepristone.
Trump insisted he will never have to make such decisions because it would be decided by states.
Notably, more that 100 House Republicans, many of whom are close allies of Trump’s, have signed on to the Life at Conception Act which declares that human life begins at conception.
