Trump & Vance Spent the Weekend Trying to Further Bullshit Voters About a National Abortion Ban
Project 2025 shows how, if elected, Donald Trump could use the Comstock Act to bypass Congress and impose a national abortion ban by blocking the dissemination of abortion pills and abortion-related medical supplies. Trump, a proven serial liar who boasts about being the one to kill Roe v. Wade, has stridently denied all of this, because abortion bans are electorally unpopular.
But his denials often contain glaring caveats. Case in point: On Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Trump said a national abortion ban is “off the table,” but “we’ll see what happens.” Very, very reassuring, Sir.
“Let me just tell you, I think that it’s something that’s off the table now, because I did something that everybody has wanted to do, I was able to get it back to the states,” Trump said. He went on to lie that “every Democrat and Republican wanted” Roe overturned, despite how 81% of Americans say abortion should be between a patient and their doctor rather than the government. “Everybody wanted it, and I did it,” Trump lied. “Now, we’ll see what happens. I will say this, that issue has been, in my opinion, largely defused.”
This—the idea that abortion rights are a “largely defused” non-issue—has become a central talking point of Trump’s campaign in this final stretch before Election Day. In September, he assured us if he’s elected, women “WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION.” Before that, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, lied that abortion isn’t even a factor this election cycle compared to “real” issues like the economy, which is actually inextricable from abortion access. Paradoxically enough, other Republican candidates have said women voters are “crazy” and singularly obsessed with abortion—so, which is it???
One day before Trump's interview, Vance gave an equally misleading one of his own. Speaking to the New York Times, Vance struggled to explain where he stands on out-of-state abortion travel. For context, in 2021, Vance said that if Roe is overturned, we’ll need a federal ban to prevent “Black women” in Ohio from flying to California for abortions. But he told the Times he “accept[s] that as the reality of the state-level, state-focused regime that President Trump and I are encouraging people to take,” people will travel for abortion care.
“Am I OK with it? I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it,” he continued. “I’m OK with the states making these decisions.” None of this is reassuring given that earlier this year, Trump advocated for states to create surveillance programs to enforce abortion bans and punish abortion seekers. In 2023, Vance himself signed a letter asserting that law enforcement has a right to access traveling abortion patients’ medical data to enforce abortion bans. So, if states adopt these policies, Vance and Trump will give their full-throated support.
Anti-abortion politicians spent years lying about Roe—lying that it wouldn’t be overturned, lying that those who feared it would be were “hysterical,” lying that if Roe were overturned, they’d leave abortion up to the states. (Why don’t you ask Alabama abortion funds how that last lie has been panning out for them??) Their gaslighting proved effective: In 2018, four years before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, 60% of voters said they didn’t believe the Supreme Court would really kill Roe.
Now, anti-abortion politicians are lying again, except instead of using the term "national abortion ban," they've started saying they’ll impose “reasonable federal restrictions” or a “minimum national standard." (These are the same thing.) Now, they’re assuring us Trump won’t sign a bill that presents itself as a “total national abortion ban,” when this is immaterial: Trump doesn’t need Congress to ban abortion. And a Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to explicitly call any ban a ban on its face. It’s infuriating how stupid they think we are. And it’s even more infuriating that if mainstream media keeps uncritically parroting out Republicans’ lies and distortions, they might just get away with it—again.