Trump Accuses Some Republicans of Speaking ‘Very Inarticulately’ about Abortion

During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, former president Donald Trump accused members of his own party of speaking “very inarticulately” about abortion — but declined to give specifics about his own views on the issue.

Trump told the show’s new moderator, Kristen Welker, that “both sides are going to like me” on the issue of abortion and suggested he could serve as a mediator between Republicans and Democrats to find consensus.

“We’re going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it,” Trump said. “And both sides are going to come together and both sides — both sides, and this is a big statement — both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you’ll have an issue that we can put behind us.”

Asked whether that agreement would be a state or federal policy, Trump replied: “It could be state or it could be federal. I don’t, frankly, care.”

Trump declined to endorse a standard number of weeks after which abortion would be illegal, with some exceptions, and he similarly refused to say whether he feels the issue would be best settled at the state or federal level.

He blasted how other Republicans have spoken about the issue.

“I watch some of them without the exceptions, et cetera, et cetera,” he said. “I said, ‘Other than certain parts of the country, you can’t — you’re not going to win on this issue. But you will win on this issue when you come up with the right number of weeks.”

“Because Democrats don’t want to be radical on the issue, most of them, some do,” he added. “They don’t want to be radical on the issue. They don’t want to kill a baby in the seventh month or the ninth month or after birth. And they’re allowed to do that, and you can’t do that.”

While Trump pointed to 15 weeks as a “number that people are talking about right now” for a federal abortion limit, he said he wouldn’t sign a 15-week ban as president.

He criticized the six-week ban signed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis as “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo responded to Trump’s comments in a post on X: “We’ve already seen the disastrous results of Donald Trump compromising with Democrats: over $7 trillion in new debt, an unfinished border wall, and the jailbreak First Step Act letting violent criminals back on to the streets.”

“Republicans across the country know that Ron DeSantis will never back down,” Romeo added.

Trump, meanwhile, also spoke at length during the interview about the 2020 election and his legal woes.

He said he chose not to listen to White House and campaign attorneys who told him the election had not been stolen “because I didn’t respect them as lawyers.”

He said those lawyers “turn out to be RINOs [Republicans in name only], or they turn out to be not so good, in many cases.”

“But I did respect others,” Trump said. “I respected many others that said the election was rigged.”

He said it was “my choice” to push to overturn the 2020 election.

During the interview, Trump spoke about how close the election was as far as the number of votes he would have needed to win the electoral college, leading Welker to ask whether he was acknowledging that he didn’t win.

“I’m not acknowledging,” he said. “No. I say I won the election.”

Trump is facing four trials, including one federal and one state election stemming from his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But he told Welker he doesn’t even think about going to prison.

]“I’m built a little differently I guess, because I have had people come up to me and say, ‘How do you do it, sir? How do you do it?’ I don’t even think about it,” he said.

“When you say, do I lose sleep? I sleep,” he added later in the interview. “I sleep. Because I truly feel that, in the end, we’re going to win.”

He would not rule out pardoning himself if he were convicted on federal charges and were to be reelected, but said it is “very unlikely.”

“What, what did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said. “You mean because I challenge an election, they want to put me in jail?”