The group is not ‘aligning with’ Trump any more than it is with Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, or Asa Hutchinson.
The headline reads, “Anti-abortion group aligns with Trump, weeks after criticism.” That makes it sound as though Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a group that assailed Trump after one of his spokesman rejected a federal role in protecting unborn children, is backing down. It may even lead people to think that the SBA Pro-Life America is endorsing Trump.
Neither is true. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, told me this morning that the group is not “aligning with” Trump any more than it is with Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, or Asa Hutchinson. It is encouraging all of them to endorse its agenda, including a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. In her statement on a recent meeting with Trump — a meeting that included Senator Lindsey Graham, the sponsor of the federal 15-week ban — she said that Trump had reiterated that any federal ban should include exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and threats to the mother’s life. That’s a softening of the position Trump’s spokesman had taken.
The real story thus appears to be that after Dannenfelser’s group criticized Trump, he moved partway toward its position, and it then cheered him for doing so. Which is exactly the type of behavior one would expect of an activist group trying to pull politicians toward it.