Donald Trump, who’s notoriously bragged about killing Roe v. Wade, gave a rambling and largely incoherent press conference on Thursday in which he once again showed that he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to abortion care.
First, Trump said abortion “has become much less of an issue” after the Supreme Court overturned Roe (current polls, as well as the results of the 2022 and 2023 elections, show otherwise). In addition to lying about abortion care later in pregnancy, Trump, now a Florida resident, also refused to say how he will vote on the state’s Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would codify abortion rights in the state constitution.
But his most bizarre comment came after a reporter asked whether Trump would direct the FDA to revoke access to mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortions. In June, the Supreme Court ruled against a group of anti-abortion doctors who sought to restrict access to the pill, saying they didn’t have standing to sue while still leaving the door open for future legal challenges. Anti-choice advocates have pushed for a potential second Trump administration to curb access to the medication, which is currently used in most clinician-provided and self-managed abortions in the U.S.
“You could do things that would be, that would supplement. Absolutely,” Trump said. “And those things are pretty open and humane. But you have to be able to have a vote, and all I want to do is give everyone a vote. The votes are taking place right now as we speak. There are many things on a humane basis that you can do outside of that, but also you have to give a vote. And the people will have to decide.”
So, does Trump even know what mifepristone is? And does it matter?
Based on his meandering reply, I’d say that no, he has no idea what mifepristone is. And to the second question, it does not matter. Though Trump and other Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the issue of abortion, going as far as not mentioning the word at all during the Republican National Convention last month, their plans are clear.
Project 2025, the far-right presidential-transition plan authored by Trump alumni, outlines the ways his second administration could implement a de facto national abortion ban. One of the proposals is to enforce the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that would prosecute people who send abortion pills through the mail. Project 2025 also calls for the next Republican president to direct the FDA to rescind its two-decade-old approval of mifepristone. All the rambling can’t disguise that, if given the opportunity, Trump would go further to end abortion access this time around.
