Trump wades into the abortion wars – it will not go well for him

On Thursday, former president Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden made dueling appearances at the US-Mexico border.

As much as Biden wanted to play political jiu-jitsu and attack Trump for killing last month’s bipartisan agreement that would have swapped restrictions to immigration for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, his trip tacitly admitted that Trump has won the messaging war on immigration, as polling shows.

The fact few people are even taking about relief for undocumented immigrants or work permits shows just how far away discussions about immigration reform have gone since the days when Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice president – and how little policy has changed given how many migrants were deported, which is why immigrant rights activists called Obama “deporter-in-chief.”

But during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trumpinto talking about abortion. He specifically mentioned “I haven’t agreed to any number, I’m going to see,” before adding that “we want to take an issue that was very polarising and get it settled and solved, so everybody can be happy.”

Trump’s words show a shift in his rhetoric about abortion. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Trump has bragged about nominating Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, claiming that he thereby made the Dobbs v Jackson decision that took away the right to an abortion that Roe enshrined.

But so far, Trump has refrained from endorsing actual policy decisions. Indeed, he and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis clashed about DeSantis signing a six-week abortion ban. While his former vice president Mike Pence came out in support of a 15-week abortion ban during his presidential campaign, Trump did not echo the calls. Rather, he said the decision brought abortion “back into the states.”