Former President Donald Trump won’t rule it out during a press conference at the Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday. cancels access to mifepristoneone of two drugs used in medical abortions.
“You can do things that will complement — absolutely — that’s pretty open and humane,” Trump said in response to a question from NBC News about whether he would take steps such as directing the Food and Drug Administration to revoke access to mifepristone.
“Other than that, there’s a lot you can do on a humanitarian basis,” Trump said, telling people about abortion, “and you should vote.”
Trump’s comments on Thursday appeared to be a shift from the former president’s stance in June He said in the CNN debate: “I won’t block it.”
In response to clarifying questions about Trump’s position, Trump campaign national press secretary Carolyn Leavitt told NBC News: “As President Trump has said, he wants ‘everyone to vote’ on the issue, reiterating his longstanding position of supporting rights.” states to make decisions on abortion.”
The idea is to direct the FDA to withdraw access to mifepristone The main policy plan in Project 2025a more than 900-page document written by conservative groups and organized by the Heritage Foundation that lays out the governing plan for the next GOP presidential administration.
Trump and his campaign have abandoned Project 2025. although it depends on the initiative many Trump allies and former advisers.
Trump was also asked at Thursday’s press conference how he plans to vote Florida’s ballot initiative this fall expand access to abortion. The former president, a Florida native, did not say how he would vote, but teased an upcoming announcement about it, adding that abortion is “no longer a big factor.”
Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez criticized Trump’s comments in a statement Thursday.
“Women all over the country are already suffering from the nightmare that Donald Trump has unleashed against Roe v. Wade,” she said. “This reality — women dying before they get the help they need, doctors facing death threats, prison sentences for doing their job, rape and incest survivors being forced to flee their states for basic health care — only if Donald Trump wins and access to medical abortions is cut off.” if he raises it, it will get worse.
The abortion pill mifepristone has been at the center of the political sphere since the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.
In late 2022, a lawsuit filed in Texas by the Hippocratic Medicine Alliance sought to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to win the case, protecting the plaintiffs’ access to abortion pills across the country.
At the time, RNC spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said in a statement: “The Supreme Court ruled unanimously 9-0. The matter is settled.”
Nnamdi Egwuonwu and Jake Traylor contributed.