During a chaotic and lie-ridden press conference on Thursday, former President Donald Trump suggested that he would be open to restricting access to abortion medication should he win the White House this fall.
Critics blasted the Republican presidential nominee’s comments, with some suggesting that Trump didn’t appear to know what mifepristone — the medication in question — even is.
During the Mar-a-Lago-based presser, NBC News senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake asked Trump a question specifically about mifepristone. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the availability of the drug, which has become the most utilized abortion method in the country.
Haake asked whether Trump would direct the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “revoke access to mifepristone,” an outcome many far right anti-abortion activists are hoping for if he becomes president.
Trump responded by saying, “sure, you could, you could do things that will be, would, would supplement. Absolutely.”
He added that there are supposedly things that could be done “on a humane basis” with regard to mifepristone, refraining from going into detail on what he meant. “You also have to give a vote” to the issue, Trump went on, though it was unclear if he meant an election by voters or by lawmakers in Congress.
Critics noted that Trump’s answer was vague and nonsensical — suggesting that he is uninformed on the issue and that anti-abortion voices would have major influence over his decisions as president.
“Preceding the question, Trump says Harris isn’t smart. Then he takes the mifepristone question: He clearly has no idea what he’s talking about… and seems to suggest, yes, his FDA will revoke it,” Los Angeles Times columnist Jackie Calmes said on X.
“This was by far the best question of the day, exposing that Trump has no idea what mifepristone is,” MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell said.
“The primary thing to understand about Trump and abortion is that he truly, does not care,” opined journalist and frequent Trump critic Jill Filipovic. “He’s ‘pro-life’ when it’s convenient, ‘moderate’ on abortion when it’s not. He does not know what mifepristone is.”
“If elected, he will outsource his abortion policy to anti-abortion groups,” Filipovic added.
Abortion and reproductive rights are a key issue in this year’s presidential race, with Democratic candidate for President Kamala Harris already mentioning the issue in campaign ads, a stark reminder to voters that Trump proudly helped to dismantle Roe v. Wade through the appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his term in office.
Trump’s vagueness regarding mifepristone may also be due to his understanding that revealing his views on abortion could hurt him politically.
Recent polling demonstrates that the majority of voters trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, with a newly published NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showing that 56 percent of Americans think she would handle the issue better, with only 41 percent saying the same of Trump.
Polling on medication abortion also shows strong support from most Americans to keep mifepristone legal and accessible. An Axios/Ipsos poll from earlier this year, for instance, showed that 72 percent of voters back allowing people to access the medication.