Former President Donald Trump’s latest comments about abortion are a “gift” to Democrats ahead of the presidential election in November, his former attorney Michael Cohen wrote in an opinion piece on Friday.
Trump, the current frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, during a Fox News town hall on Wednesday said he was “proud” to have appointed the Supreme Court justices who ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, the landmark case that guaranteed abortion rights across the country for decades, in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That ruling was celebrated by conservatives, but also created a political challenge for Republicans as they dealt with a revolt from swing voters over the issue during the midterm election.
“For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it. And I’m proud to have done it,” Trump said during the town hall. “They wanted to get it back. You wouldn’t have that—there would be no question. Nobody else was going to get that done but me, and we did it. We did something that is a miracle.”
The former president’s comments could benefit Democrats in the elections later this year, Cohen, his former attorney who has since flipped on him, wrote in his opinion piece published by MSNBC on Friday morning.
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Cohen wrote that Trump “did not just lean into the issue,” but “gave it a bear hug.”
“There is perhaps no greater gift that Trump can give to his political opponents than trumpeting his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. One can fully expect to see this quote appear in millions of dollars’ worth of campaign ads this fall,” Cohen wrote.
Cohen was a key figure in Trump’s 2016 presidential election, often seen vehemently defending his boss. At one point, he famously proclaimed that he’d “take a bullet” for the former president.
Their relationship took a turn after he flipped on Trump in the early years of his administration as investigators targeted Cohen’s personal finances. In 2018, he was sentenced to three years in prison for various crimes, including campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments made to two women in exchange for their silence about their alleged personal relationships with Trump. Since severing ties with the former president, Cohen has been a vocal critic of his.
Meanwhile, abortion has become a challenging issue for Republicans once the Court overturned Roe. After, several Republican-led states passed laws either banning or greatly restricting the medical procedure.
Polls, however, show most Americans generally support abortion rights, with some limits. Several states, including some that lean conservative, have voted to protect abortion rights in the wake of the Court’s ruling. Meanwhile, abortion helped Democrats score wins in the 2022 midterm, which saw Republicans underperform in key races across the country despite hopes that President Joe Biden’s unpopularity would propel them to a “red wave.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email.
Grant Davis Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, told Newsweek on Friday that he has a different perspective on the issue, noting that Trump’s remarks are neither “surprising or substantially different” than Republicans’ general stance on the issue of abortion.
“I don’t see this as a new smoking gun when it comes to this issue. If Trump were to follow this up with a statement about wanting no abortion access whatsoever, across the nation, etc., then I think you’d have something that could be used,” Reeher said.
The Biden campaign has sought to highlight Trump’s position on abortion, posting a video of his remarks to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday with the caption, “Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade: I did it. I’m proud to have done it. It was a miracle.”
Trump has previously acknowledged that Republicans have struggled with their messaging on abortion after Roe was overturned, at times leaving him at odds with some of the Republican Party’s anti-abortion activists.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.