At the urging of former President Donald Trump and his allies, the Republican Party is preparing to abandon a decades-long push for a federal abortion ban and soften its stance on same-sex marriage. platformThe changes to the draft policy platform were adopted Monday morning ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The new draft of the party platform, which still needs to be approved by the full Republican National Committee, comes after the Trump campaign expressed concern that it would make a vociferous push to keep those seen as too socially conservative off the platform committee. things like the federal abortion ban, which is consistently unpopular in public polling.
“The reality of the situation is that this platform reflects the realities of today,” a member of the platform’s committee, who spoke anonymously to NBC News to detail private discussions, told NBC News. “It’s a position that leaves it up to the states, which is the position of the Republican Party.”
He is fighting how to manage changes to both abortion and same-sex marriage have caused the GOP to change its national policy platform, which generally occurs every four years alongside presidential elections. This year’s platform meeting was recently held behind closed doors for the first time, with no access to the press or members of the public.
Social conservatives pushed to keep the old language of the platform, which advocated banning abortion and opposed same-sex marriage, but lost it as the politics surrounding both changed over the years. Trump said abortion should remain a matter of public policy after the Supreme Court overturned the 2022 decision in Roe v. Wade earlier this year, and the Trump White House has said it supports same-sex marriage during his administration.
“It’s fair to say that over 1,000 pastors have emailed, texted and called me about their frustration with where they see the platform going,” said former South Carolina GOP chairman Chad Connelly, who said he was blocked from the platform committee. “Having the label ‘extremely pro-life’.”
“The words I hear are shock, betrayal, trampled, depressed, exhausted,” she said. “Most pastors I know don’t want Biden and will probably still vote for Trump, but it hurts the energy that’s needed to do what it takes to help those people get elected president.”
In a statement, Trump’s top advisers said the platform reflects his vision for the Republican Party heading into the 2024 election cycle.
“President Trump’s 2024 Republican Party platform articulates his vision of Making America Great Again in a concise and digestible way for every voter,” said Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.
The Biden campaign said the GOP draft platform obscured Trump’s true policy goals.
“Any voter who wants to know Donald Trump’s real agenda for America should consult Google Project 2025,” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement. “What was put forth today was not a platform, it was a cheap, blanket admission that Trump and his campaign wanted to hide from the dangerous Project 2025 agenda to make Trump a dictator on day one and destroy our vetting and vetting system. balance sheets, cutting Social Security, banning abortion, and worse.
Trump’s endorsement of the proposed party platform came just two days after he publicly criticized conservative groups behind the writing of Project 2025, the 922-page policy roadmap for a potential second Trump administration. Critics have dismissed some of the project’s proposals, and the Biden campaign has repeatedly tried to tie Trump to it.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said wrote on the social network. “I don’t know who is behind this. I don’t agree with some of what you say and some of what you say is completely ridiculous and abysmal. I wish them success in whatever they do, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Russ Voth, director of platform policy at the Republican National Committee, also co-authored Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation and supported by more than 100 other allied organizations.
A day after Trump’s social media post, Project 2025 director Paul Dance canceled a taped interview scheduled for Monday with NBC News.
Changes within the platform
The Republican Party’s current policy platform, unchanged since 2016 after skipping the party platform process during the pandemic in 2020, says the GOP supports a “human life amendment” to the US Constitution. Amendments proposed this year say the 14th Amendment essentially offers protection for life at conception and “therefore, states are free to enact laws protecting these rights.”
This is what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. It’s a significant shift for the Republican Party, which has struggled with how to manage its stance on abortion since overturning Wade, and pits social conservatives against figures who are more concerned about the political ramifications of the party’s position.
“Unfortunately, the statement on abortion and pro-life issues is very weak and less effective in articulating a sound policy agenda around these issues,” said John Stemberger, president of Liberty Counsel Action, a conservative action group.
Stemberger praised the new sections of the GOP policy platform, which offer protections for parental rights in education and formally oppose the party’s “sex indoctrination of our children.”
On same-sex marriage, the Trump-aligned platform committee also approved changes opposed by a social conservative in the party. The newly proposed platform removes language that says marriage is “between one man and one woman and is the foundation of a free society.”
Instead, it was replaced with language that said the party promotes “a culture that values the sanctity of marriage, the blessing of childhood, the fundamental role of the family, and supports working parents.” The newly proposed platform does not mention “one man and one woman”.
Although there was an intense lobbying effort before the platform committee meeting, the issue was not discussed at Monday’s meeting, which focused more on abortion language.
“I don’t think one person has brought it up,” a member of the second platform committee told NBC News.
The potential use of military force on the southern border was one of the issues that drew attention during the nearly three-hour meeting, which several members of the platform committee said could raise legal issues. Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., a former Green Beret, was quick to allay concerns.
Other additions to the party’s platform include launching “the largest deportation program in American history,” a push to use federal law to “remove from America communists, Marxists, and socialists who hate foreign Christians,” and an effort to “keep men out.” women’s sports”.
The draft platform also says Republicans will “hold accountable” those who use the government to “unjustly persecute political opponents.”
“We will declassify government records, root out the guilty and fire corrupt officials,” the platform said, referring to the baseless notion that President Joe Biden and Democrats wrongfully prosecuted Republicans for political reasons.
The proposed platform is only 16 pages long, much shorter than the existing document of more than 60 pages. It was the result of Trump’s concerted effort to streamline and simplify the party’s policy platform.
“For decades, Republicans have published textbook-length platforms that have been vetted and deliberately misrepresented by our political opponents,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a memo first reported late last month. The New York Times. “The mainstream media uses the pulpit of violence to perpetuate lies and distortions, and voters often believe we stand for something different than we actually do.”
It’s something some party officials say is the right move after years of massive GOP platforms.
“I think that’s what the platform should be,” said a party official. “What DJT is working on, but not hundreds of pages of dribble.”