Politics

The abortion debate is turning into Trump’s greatest dilemma

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

The abortion debate is turning into Trump’s greatest dilemma

By suggesting — however temporarily — that he was open to a Florida ballot measure that would guarantee the right to an abortion until the time of fetal viability, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has once again played his mostly white evangelical base for suckers. Those white evangelicals helped put him in power in 2016 to accomplish their longstanding goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. Now, those same voters have staked their hopes for a total ban on abortion on Trump winning the 2024 presidential election. But there Trump was last week, telling an NBC News reporter that he thinks Florida’s current law, which bans abortions after six weeks, is too restrictive. But then his evangelical base quickly brought him to heel.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has once again played his white evangelical base for suckers.

“I think six weeks is too short,” Trump said Thursday. “There has to be more time and so I want more weeks. I am going to be voting that there will be more than six weeks.” To be clear, Florida voters won’t have the option of choosing how many weeks a pregnancy can progress before an abortion is illegal. They’ll, again, only be voting on whether or not there’s a right to abortion as long as the fetus isn’t viable.

Trump’s answer that Florida’s abortion law is too restrictive angered his most loyal base. But that’s not all. At a campaign stop in Michigan, Trump not only said that he supports IVF — which some diehard abortion opponents oppose — but that he also wants the government to pay the cost of such treatments if insurance companies do not.

The outcry was immediate. Lila Rosean anti-abortion activist, said in a social media post, “If you don’t stand for pro-life principles, you don’t get pro-life votes.”

Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote on X, “Former President Trump now appears determined to undermine his prolife supporters. His criticism of Florida abortion restrictions & his call for government funding of IVF & his recent statement about ‘reproductive rights’ seem almost calculated to alienate pro-life voters.”

Mohler said the election “is shaping up as a catastrophe for the pro-life movement” and that Trump “had better count the cost of abandoning pro-life voters — quickly.”

And Trump quickly backed down. Of course, he said Friday, he supports the six-week abortion ban in Florida.

But that can’t erase the fact that he interjected unease and distrust into his faithful supporters. What’s surprising is that such voters ever had faith and trust in Trump on this issue. He has been all over the place on the topic of abortion for a long time. He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 1999 that he was “very pro-choice.” When other Republicans brought up that remark in a 2015 debate, he said he’d “evolved.” In February 2016 he praised Planned Parenthoodbut said he’d defund them because they provided abortion care. At a March 2016 BLN town hall, he said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions.

Though he’s often taken credit for defeating Roe v. Wadewhen Republicans did poorly in the 2022 midterm elections, he wrote on Truth Social, “It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.” In March, he suggested he’d support a 15-week national abortion ban.

Now he has a dilemma. He knows that the draconian policies of his evangelical base are not popular, which prompted him to sayunconvincingly, that the “Trump administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” But he needs those white evangelical voters to stick by his side. Trump’s frenetic shifting on the issue isn’t about a lack of knowledge. It is about desperation.

Trump’s frenetic shifting on the issue isn’t about a lack of knowledge. It is about desperation.

Trump has never been good for women, but the combination of JD Vance harping on childless “cat ladies” and their tag-team attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has made them and the GOP look like the party of professional women haters.

Trump’s flip-flopping is a sign of his flop sweat. Running against Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, leaves Trump as the old man with his young even more misogynist sidekick yearning for the days when the little woman was at home, barefoot and pregnant. His campaign can’t strike egalitarian message in part because of who Trump and Vance are, but also because they’re beholden to hard-line Republican evangelical supporters who are very much invested in banning abortion and restricting IVF.

The demise of Roe v. Wade and the subsequent IVF battles have been devastating for women, and the speeches and commercials featuring women who have been rendered infertile or suffered grievous injury because of these draconian laws stand in condemnation of the intentional cruelty of these laws condemning women to painsuffering, infertility and even death. These testimonies stand in direct contrast to the ways in which Republicans either try to obfuscate what the abortion bans do, or to downplay their effect on women’s access to reproductive care.

The 10 states where abortion rights will be on the ballot in November are a minefield for the Republican Party up and down the ballot. And everything Trump says about the topic leads to another explosion.

Politics

‘I think Alaska’s turning blue’: Republicans fret Sullivan’s path to reelection

Published

21 hours ago

October 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

WASILLA, Alaska — Three weeks out from Election Day, President Donald Trump took a helicopter to a plane to another helicopter to a motorcade to an ice hockey rink in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Valley, traversing nearly 4,000 miles over more than eight hours to turn out his base here to help Republicans defend the Senate.

But Trump’s trek might not be enough to save Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s running in a tougher-than-expected race against Democrat Mary Peltola in a state where the president’s approval rating is underwater and independents outnumber both Republicans and Democrats.

Alaska strategists and voters who spoke to Blue Light News acknowledged that Sullivan faces a difficult path to reelection, despite Trump’s time investment and the outside money pouring in.

“Very conservative MAGA voters can’t vote for you harder,” said Scott Kendall, a veteran political strategist who worked on two of Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns and was chief of staff to former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker. “Donald Trump’s support in this current climate is both a blessing and a curse.”

Even some Trump supporters at the Tuesday night rally admitted the outlook appeared bleak.

“I think Alaska’s turning blue,” said Matt Niessink, a 45-year-old general contractor from Wasilla. He said he had voted for Trump three times and planned to support Republicans this year.

What did he wish the president would do differently? “I wish he’d shut his mouth sometimes and not be such a pompous ass,” Niessink said.

The president was in Wasilla — population 10,556 — because the outlook is darkening for his party in a state he carried by 13 points just two years ago. In a midterm year defined by the cost of gas and groceries, the Last Frontier has been hit particularly hard, with the average price of diesel nearing $7 per gallon. In the Senate race, Peltola is flush with cash and leads Sullivan in most polls. MAGA Inc., the cash-rich Trump-aligned super PAC, is increasingly focusing on Alaska as one in a slate of states that can help Republicans hold the Senate.

Enter Trump, who has been spending the cycle’s crucial final weeks holding rallies in red states to juice support among his base, which tends to see depressed turnout in years when he’s not on the ballot.

“That was a lot of flying,” the president said at the top of his remarks. “In fact, they were thinking about canceling. They said, ‘Sir, you’re very busy, this is very tough.’” But, Trump continued, he refused to cancel for a state he won three times.

Echoing his comments at other red-state rallies, Trump asked the roaring crowd for “one big favor” — to “pretend that I’m on the ballot, because every time I’ve been on the ballot, we win.” He repeated his promise that Americans will receive $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold both chambers.

“What this is about is getting out the vote,” Sullivan told reporters before Trump’s speech. “A rising tide of enthusiasm lifts all the candidates.”

Unlike some other Republican candidates in tight races, Sullivan has shied away from distancing himself from the least popular aspects of Trump’s presidency.

Sullivan proclaimed on stage at the rally that “the conflict in the Middle East is temporary. The true forever war is the national Democrats’ war against Alaska oil and gas and our jobs.” And although a campaign aide released a statement condemning Trump’s move to import Russian diesel, Sullivan did not join four of his Republican Senate colleagues, including Murkowski, who called on Trump to reverse the decision.

Art Hackney, a veteran Republican strategist in Alaska, said that “most of the people who support” Sullivan “think that he should” break more with the president.

Hackney, who runs a pro-Sullivan super PAC called “We Stand with Dan,” attributed that choice to loyalty — but suggested the president’s demand of fealty, and treatment of frequent dissenter Murkowski, could also be part of Sullivan’s calculus.

“A lot of his longtime supporters and the people who are in the industries that would benefit from that wish he would be more blunt,” Hackney said. “But with what Murkowski has done, if Dan did something considered a disrespectful trigger or something, what do you think would happen? It could well have implications for things that affect Alaska’s economy.”

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Politics

In private, top Republicans believe the House is a lost cause

Published

1 day ago

October 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.

Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told Blue Light News the House had all but slipped away.

One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.

“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”

A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.

Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”

Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.

Trump officials and other top GOP operatives say more candidates may be cut off in the coming days, in order to shift advertising money to races where it can make more of a difference. Republican groups have already given up on multiple races where they once hoped to unseat Democratic lawmakers.

The Republican Party is under extreme pressure across the Midwest, where it is now spending heavily to defend Senate seats in once-reliably MAGA states like Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.

Bacon, a maverick often at odds with the White House, said there was no mystery in his party’s political tribulations.

“I’ve talked to some who are making these decisions: The biggest problem is the president’s polling numbers and unfavorables,” Bacon said.

White House officials insist they’re not giving up on either chamber of Congress. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said Trump remained “committed to maintaining Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.”

As he departed on Tuesday to campaign in Alaska for embattled GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, Trump professed optimism about the midterms but acknowledged that sitting presidents typically see their party lose seats in the off year.

“But I’m doing a tour right now and I’m doing rallies,” Trump added. “The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson went even further, flatly declaring during a campaign stop in deep-red Texas that “the polling is wrong” in showing his party on the brink of a broad defeat.

Yet at a tactical level, the Republican Party’s moves to shift money away from defending the House and toward saving the Senate are clear enough. In recent days, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for House Republicans, canceled advertising for key House candidates in Nebraska and Iowa and allowed the Senate Leadership Fund – a Republican group focused on the upper chamber – to swoop in and claim the airtime to support Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts and Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for Senate in Iowa.

“These are not the moves of a party that’s going to keep the House,” a third Republican lawmaker said.

In statements to Blue Light News, both CLF and the National Republican Congressional Committee said they had no intention of giving up on the fight for control of the House.

NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said districts are won “one by one,” and that the GOP has “the financial firepower and ground game needed to win.”

Chris Winkelman, president of CLF, said his group would keep moving money around to maximize the impact nationally.

The goal, he said, was to “keep the pressure on the most vulnerable Democrats and preserve a path to 218 seats.”

Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who lost his swing seat in Trump’s first midterm election eight years ago, said his former colleagues were clear-eyed about where the election seemed to be headed.

“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo said. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway.”

Megan Messerly, Lauren Fedor, Lisa Kashinsky and Myah Ward contributed to this report.

Politics

Ossoff says he has ‘zero interest in running for president’

Published

2 days ago

October 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said Tuesday he will not run for president in 2028 and committed to serving a full six-year Senate term if reelected.

“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president. I’m running for reelection to the Senate,” Ossoff said during a Georgia Senate debate against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.

Asked by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether he would serve his full term if he wins in November, Ossoff replied: “Yes, I will.”

The remarks are Ossoff’s most forceful rejection yet of a potential 2028 presidential bid even as his name has repeatedly surfaced in national Democrats’ conversations about possible contenders for the party’s nomination. His public commitment to a full Senate term on Tuesday is the latest of his campaign’s many efforts to tamp down that speculation.

Ossoff gained national attention this year given his strong fundraising numbers, his consistent lead in public polling against Collins and his ability to generate viral moments on the campaign trail, particularly through his attacks on President Donald Trump. Democrats are bullish about Ossoff’s ability to hold onto his Senate seat — so much so that the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC said Tuesday it was removing its ad spending in Georgia for the week.

He’s also taken steps to boost the state Democratic party in Georgia, a perennial battleground that has been and will be key to winning the presidency. If November brings historic wins up and down the ballot, Ossoff will get some of the credit — and he’ll have confirmed his status as a leader in the swing state.