Welp, here's something you probably didn't expect Donald Trump to say:
He's lying, of course, but that's not the point. The point is that abortion bans have proven to be such a disaster for conservatives that Trump now feels the need to effectively abandon his opposition to abortion altogether. Conservative Philip Klein calls it what it is:
The idea that his administration would be “great” for “reproductive rights” is hard to interpret in any other way than as an affirmatively pro-choice statement. By the common usage of the term, if you support reproductive rights it means you want broader access to abortion.
....In addition to being a moral abomination, it’s unclear what this does for him politically. With this post, Trump will further alienate pro-lifers and divide his own party while doing absolutely zero to win over anybody pro-choice.
This is all part and parcel of the obvious fact that Trump has never cared about abortion. Hell, I'd bet my big toe that he's paid for a few in his life. Abortion is and always has been a purely transactional issue for Trump: as long as pro-lifers help him get elected, he'll be pro-life. If they become baggage, he'll drop them.
That's always been the way it is. But it's only now that it's becoming too obvious to ignore.
And, of course, he's lying the way he always lies, ie just saying stuff he thinks will sound good in the moment without the slightest regard for truth or falsity. And his cultists know this perfectly well, AND they know perfectly well that he will sign a total abortion ban if Congress passes one and puts it in front of him. So I don't really know how many people it will alienate, or fool -- except perhaps a few media scribblers who desperately want to talk about a Trump "pivot" on something, just to make it seem like his campaign is doing something -- anything! -- purposeful or strategic.
(Klein, of course, also knows all this, but he's gotta write something, so he's pretending it's serious and riffing off it. Why is he paid a salary again?)
+1. It won't alienate any of his supporters or gain him any new ones as everybody knows he is a pathological liar.
Don't forget all the "credulous" fact checkers like the WaPo's egregious Glenn Kessler, who will ding all the Democratic messages on abortion by citing this transparent lie. They already do the exact same ludicrous dance on Social Security and Medicare.
This. If Trump knows anything, it that it is easy to chum the waters and liberals will go right along with it, to be "fair and balanced."
You've got Trump all wrong, Kevin. Trump wouldn't pay for any abortion. He'd stick the woman with it. Same as with his contractors.
No, he'd have his lawyer pay for it. Then he'd stiff his lawyer.
Howard Stern once asked Trump how many abortions he has paid for, and Trump just gave a smile.
None of you guys understand Donny. He'd have is charity pay for it.
Indeed.
There is a clear track record, he would not stiff the woman where he needs an action, he stiffs the intermediated service provider.
The question is, does this weaken enthusiasm for his campaign? He's been lying to everyone all the time and maybe it's finally catching up to him.
I dont think they care much about his lieing. In fact I think they admire him for it. Though they might start to care if they think he's lieing to them. This is the dilemma you face when you support a pathological liar. You can never be too sure who he is lieing to, you or someone else.
A certain fraction don't care about the lying around non-core.
This can be different if sold not merely as a lie but as "Trump is transactional and now he sees abortion as a personal loser, so he is gonna dump you"
The problem you Lefties have is you understand Trump and them via your value system... which is something approaching a cultural misinterpretation like how Americans get cultural clues in Europe wrong...
Neither you nor your computer's spell check can spell "lying"?
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. Good For You. I will endeavor to spell lying correctly in the future.
No, because the Evangelicals will count on this being a lie. They know he lies, but they all firmly believe he works for them. It's stupid, but they believe it.
They know he lies and they know the functionaries he hires will do what they want.
They know he lies, and they know God wants him to lie, because ....
They forget who the father of lies is. Hint: It wasn't Fred Trump.
The Anti_Trump Republicans should exploit this in adverts - his normal lying is around things that the MAGA-religious don't actually care about so long as they feel they are getting their goals serviced
This however is in the "goals serviced" and can be exploited.
That's what I think; this lie goes to a core value of Evangelicals.
"a core value of Evangelicals"
Assumes facts not in evidence. They all *say* it's a core value but when it comes down to affecting them... not so much.
+1
Their "core values" also include honesty, trustworthiness and not screwing porn starts. How's that holding up?
MAGA Church bible thumping, the OT, only, preachers core value is MONEY. The MAGA mansion and private jets don't pay for themselves.
In some ways, that makes him hard to debate. He'll just lie about what he's said and done so you can not pin him down. And if the moderators are not their to call him out, it turns into a he said-she said moment. For true MAGAts, it is not a lie, just owning the libs.
Trump lies when he asserts that *everyone* wanted Roe vs. Wade repealed. In the few instances where he said it to a reporter, I've never seen the reporter challenge him. So, from Trump's point of view, why not keep on saying it?
re Kevin's "Abortion is and always has been a purely transactional issue for him"
What HASN'T been a purely transactional issue with this guy? Everything with Trump is soulless transactional activity. That's why dictators like him in power.
His family as Tribe appears not to be transactional per se, but beyond that family circle, everything is transactional.
His wives have been certainly transactional. (See wife number 2 divorce right before her prenup required an increase in what she would be owed in a divorce.) So has his relationship with daughter 2.
+1!
Bah - that's taking a debate as some kind of arch serious intellectual-idealised event.
What the Lefties and Ms Harris need play is exactly Trump's game - the marketing sound-bite game. Only the bloody egg-heads care about the substantive debate and you are already sold against him (or for the dishonest twats at National Review, too deep in pure knee jerk anti-Democratism to change mind).
Sound-bites and Clips. Not bloody fact-checking, you people have been trying the Very Serious Rebuttal to Trump since 2016, it's wrestling with a pig level error. Ms Harris and Walz seem to have understood that.
*If* some version of the question comes up, Harris should give a two-sentence answer, along the lines of: "I would never sign a bill banning abortion nationwide. I absolutely would sign a bill protecting the right to choose nationwide." Then, addressing the moderators: "I will yield the rest of my time to Mr. Trump, if you will insist that he give a yes-or-no answer to the question, "Would you sign a bill creating a national ban on abortion?" It would be revealing to watch him squirm and try to deflect in that situation.
I think that tact also works for debate immigration questions-
"Immigration concerns are genuine but should now be addressed to Spkr Johnson. I'll yield the rest of my time to my opponent if you'll insist he explains why he won't even allow the speaker to make the senate a counter offer."
The only. way to "debate" him is to ignore or laugh.
I just read this in a New York Times article. Again I say, who would believe he supports the right to choose after bragging about being responsible for getting rid of Roe v. Wade? He's such a ridiculous person. This shows just how desperate he really is and how he'll say anything if he thinks it'll benefit him in some way. The man has no morals or ethics at all.
See my post below. I think he is actually so stupid/obtuse that he doesn't understand that abortion = reproductive rights. He thinks it means women will be free to have all the kids they want or something. I'm sure he's paid for his share of abortions over the years, particularly when he was going through his own personal Vietnam as a young playboy in NYC back in the 70s, but doesn't get why it matters to women.
I don't think he thinks of anyone but maybe his immediate family (and possibly not even them) as real people at all. Narcissists and sociopaths generally don't see other people as real. They're all just Non-Player Characters in the background of My Life, in the same way that role-playing videogames have lots of computer-generated "people" whom you can talk to and trade stuff with one day, kill and burn down their village the next day, come back and talk to again the next next day, etc., with absolutely no consequences carrying over to the next time you flip on the videogame and play again.
Well - I think one can say not per se 'real people' but the only humans he has any feeling for - due to being in his internal mind extensions of himself [as flesh and blood] - are his immediate family, his children that is (not the wives).
He was almost certainly referring to ivf treatments in this post.
J.D. Vance --who wants to bet his wife doesn't vote for him?
If she's willing to let him back into the house again after he was quoted saying (paraphrased) "I love my wife even though she's not white," she probably is all-in for voting for him.
Sorry, can't help myself:
I got a woman in Jackson
I ain't gonna say her name
She's a brown-skin woman
But I love her just the same
--Bob Dylan, Outlaw Blues, 1965
If he really *were* to throw conservative evangelicals/pro-lifers under the bus, that would hurt him, I think. He can't afford to alienate that large a constituency in such a close race. If evangelical Christians stay home in November, he's toast and he must know that.
Applying Trump's Razor, I think he literally doesn't see abortion access as having anything to do with "reproductive rights" and is talking here about preserving access to IVF or something like that (which some pro-lifers oppose, but not all).
If we don't hear a major freakout in the next day or so over this, with the post hastily deleted and his spokespeople walking it back, it's safe to assume everyone, particularly his evangelical supporters, knows he's just full of shit and being Trump.
already well said here- Trump has proved the only way to offend evangelicals is to threaten their tax exemptions.
Truth Social. Even the name of his social media company is a lie.
Wow. Somebody's polling is flashing a big red warning sign.
The only woman's "reproductive rights" Trump champion's is his right to grab their reproductive parts.
Likely bullshit that his handler's will force him to walk back.
It's not news, but the fact that where Trump posts (his social media platform) is called TRUTH SOCIAL is a deliberate effort to bamboozle. Since there's no pushback, you have reporters writing and saying that "Trump said such-and-such on Truth Social" which helps reinforce the propaganda.
Get rid of the TRUTH word, or replace SOCIAL with SOCIOPATH.
Same old Big Lie as all the rest. His lies do seem to be getting even bigger these days.
He's not "abandon"[ing] them, he's "triangulating" so he can win and then remember that he is a vicious opponent of abortion. Probably because the "That Woman" who lips off to and about him, probably had one.
Every day that this guy has any chance of winning the presidency is a real embarrassment to this country.
He has the backing of 30+ percent of Americans still believing the stolen election lie, corporate America looking to dodge taxes, wages, legal liabilities and environmental responsibilities. Now add religious nuts, xenophobes, homophobes and closet racists. Add all that up and you have a guy with a serious chance of winning.
Jeez, Kevin...are you new here? Are you actually trying to pin him down on policy? He's panicking because even he can sense that Harris has all the momentum and energy. Do you think for one minute that the Evangelicals are now not going to vote for him over this? He knows he's got them in the bag. He's just saying anything to try to change the trajectory of the race and EVERYONE knows it. These pronouncements aren't worth the price of DJT stock. If he thought it would help he'd go to El Paso and hug migrants crossing the border.
Did this lie really cost him anything ? ProChoicers on the fence might now consider voting for him. ProLifers- Where else are they gonna go??
You think no one could be that ignorant as to believe Donald? Remember 30+ percent of American still believe the stolen election lie.
"Remember 30+ percent of American still believe the stolen election lie."
I don't believe that is literally true.
30+ percent use "believes in the stolen election" as code for "will help Trump to subvert the next election." Only small part actually believe it.
“With this post, Trump will further alienate pro-lifers and divide his own party while doing absolutely zero to win over anybody pro-choice.”
Is Philip Klein serious? Trump beat Biden by 15 points in the Kansas in the 2020 election. A proposal to remove the right to an abortion from the Kansas state constitution lost by 18 points in 2022. Clearly Trump can get pro-choice voters to vote for him, and he needs a significant number of them to do so to avoid a blowout loss in 2024.
I amazed at the naive rationalizations given for supporting Trump. In 2016 a journalist did a street interview with a latino immigrations attorney who was giddy about Trump. When asked about his anti immigration comments, this college educated woman answered- “He won’t do that”. Maybe she’s related to Susan Collins?
(insert 'leopards eating peoples' faces party' meme)
He’ll say anything to attain wealth and power and change his mind the day after, even tout his religiosity (sic). And BTW he is more a puppet than a leader.
Love Kevin's analyses (even when maybe not totally right).
Love reading the intelligent reader discussion.
Also this WordPress format sucks other than replies appearing where they should be instead of a half mile away at the bottom like with some blogs. Maybe it's free and others are not, or what?
"....She has become so much of a cipher that even her own supporters cannot tell journalists what she stands for. This may well help her stay ahead in the polls for the next 70 days or so, but it will not help her advance the ball. And in politics, as in football, it is advancing the ball, not possessing it, that is the final aim of the enterprise."
Obviously I'm stupid (because I refuse to unconditionally support any party) but I honestly can't see much difference between the Harris stance and the Trump stance.
Except, of course, that the Harris stance is wise and optimal, just because, while the Trump stance is stupid and immoral, just because.
Strange how much your opinion of a tactic depends on whether the tactic is being used by US or by THEM...
Trump has been informed that the Democratic candidate for president is winning, and he is losing, so he simply starts using Democratic statements. He's entirely flexible to the point of being an amoral liar.
And his supporters know that, but just don't understand the consequences of it.