Ron DeSantis wonders if Donald Trump was ‘sincere’ in opposing abortion as President

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The Governor continues to leverage this issue in Iowa.

Ron DeSantis returned to his attacks on Donald Trump, wondering if the former President whose Supreme Court picks ended Roe v. Wade was actually “sincere” about wanting to end legalized abortion.

“Was he not sincere in January of 2020? Was he just reading off the teleprompter? Then he didn’t really mean it or has he flipped his position, because maybe he thinks there’s a political benefit to what he’s doing,” DeSantis said in Washington County, Iowa.

“I don’t know how you can just flip on something that’s fundamental, but that’s what he’s done. And he’s provided a lot of aid and comfort to people who are not supportive of the right to life.”

The Florida Governor was spotlighting Trump’s evolution from the pro-life warrior he seemed to be as President to someone less driven by abortion bans in his third run for office.

“Every one of us here today understands the eternal truth. Every child is a sacred and precious gift from God,” Trump said at the March for Life rally in 2020.

DeSantis questions that evolution.

“If you read that speech or watch that speech, he said that that life was a gift from God that the unborn are made in the image of God. He talked about the aspirations to have protections,” DeSantis continued. “That audience was definitely appreciative of what he said. How do you go from that to now attacking a state from enacting protections for a heartbeat?”

DeSantis has made hay of Trump calling Florida’s “heartbeat bill” — which bans abortion after the six-week mark of gestation with some narrowly tailored exceptions — a “terrible mistake.”

The Governor also worries that despite Florida requiring 3/5 support for a citizens’ initiative, pro-choice activists might successfully challenge that law next year.

“But they’re trying to get on the ballot to do a constitutional amendment in Florida and they would need 60% not 50. But the reality is it’s a very big expensive state to be able to advertise in and I guarantee you the other side would come loaded for bear,” DeSantis warned earlier this month in Iowa.

Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF), the committee working to put abortion access on the ballot in 2024, has nearly 750,000 signatures of the 891,523 needed.

The referendum, if it goes on the ballot, would ask voters to agree that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”

Proponents say it would restore the right to an abortion in Florida to where it was until the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned the landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade. For nearly 50 years, that ruling allowed women to end pregnancies up to 24 weeks of gestation. The new Dobbs decision moved regulation of the procedure to state jurisdiction.

The Florida Legislature passed a 15-week ban in 2022, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Then, during last Session, lawmakers passed a six-week ban on the procedure, but kept in place some exceptions.

Right now, the 15-week ban is under state Supreme Court review as Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of abortion providers sued to stop the law, arguing that the 2022 measure violates the right to privacy in the state constitution.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. His work also can be seen in the Washington Post, the New York Post, the Washington Times, and National Review, among other publications. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


8 comments

  • Josh Green

    December 21, 2023 at 1:31 pm

    Well Trump has paid for at least one abortion, which is completely fine and well within his rights, but he’s still a hypocrite about it.

  • Dont Say FLA

    December 21, 2023 at 1:58 pm

    Is any G0P sincere about anything they say? Not hardly.

  • Earl Pitts "Sage Political Polling Scholar Emeritis" American

    December 21, 2023 at 2:52 pm

    Good Afternoon America,
    STAND BY FOR NEWS;
    Meanwhile all the Republican candidates, with the sole exception of DeSantis, are practicing throwing their hands in the air and saying such things as:
    “Gee who could have ever anticipated ALL the Illegal Alians Biden let in would have ever all voted Democrat”?
    “If only we could have seen this coming “Maybe” we would have done something to stop it”.
    “We were TOTALLY BLINDSIDED by these 27 Million extra votes”.
    “Totally NOT our Fault – Oh well maybe we can loose by less votes in 2028”.
    “WHY OH WHY Did we fail to listen to “The Sage Earl Pitts American”????
    Think about it America and get behind Ron DeSantis to prevent the above from happening.
    Earl Pitts American
    Yeah America, being able to say “Earl Told Us So” is not really going to be helpfull but its all we got.

  • MH/Duuuval

    December 21, 2023 at 10:18 pm

    Trump was pro-choice before he became anti-choice.

  • Ron Forrest Ron

    December 23, 2023 at 10:48 am

    Every time Rhonda opens their Kermit The Frog mouth and speaks, all I hear is “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, wahhhhh”

  • The Rapture

    December 23, 2023 at 12:04 pm

    People want to say the G0P’s anti-abortion thing is about controlling women. To a large degree, that is true and accurate.

    However.

    The G0P’s big issue with “no abortion, no exceptions, even if we pretend there will be exceptions,” is Bible based.

    The G0P’s religion is wholly founded in a story of, if it is to be believed, that Mary and Joseph didn’t do it, then clearly it was incest.

    And how old was Mary? Probably like twelve.

    The G0P thinks abortion may prevent the second. ahem, coming. The one their book of fairy tales promises.

    Therefore, real women in the real world have to suffer.

    Because who knows, that 11 year old Ohio girl that was graped by her dad, she might’ve had Jesus in there ready to do the, uh, what do they call it, the thing were all the a-holes “asecend,” leaving the rest of us in a much improved world?

    I forget what that’s called, but that’s what it’s all about.

  • Death Certificate

    December 23, 2023 at 12:07 pm

    Why come Trump never demands to see Jesus’s death certificate?

    Like maybe he hung on that cross until he played and/or looked dead, but duhhhhhhhhhh, he was not really dead. Clearly. Obviously. NOT dead. People saw him alive 3 days later. That means he was not death.

    Let’s see that death certificate, Jesus! If it exists, it’s probably in the bathroom at Maga Largo. Trump needs to produce it for us all to see.

  • Michael K

    December 25, 2023 at 7:41 am

    Oh Ron, such a viscous line of attack on the front runner. NOT.
    Trump has no sincerity or principles, only greed and grift.

Comments are closed.


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