S4 Ep8: The Pro-Choice Trump Voter (with Elaine Godfrey)

Hey, guys. We’re about to give you my conversation with Elaine Godfrey from the Atlantic about abortion. We taped a show before Ohio passed a constitutional amendment, protecting abortion rights, before Andy Bashir won in Kentucky, partly because his Republican opponent was so extreme on abortion, and Democrats took full control of the Virginia legislature under threat of an abortion ban. I think the voters in this episode foreshadow all of that pretty well enjoy the show, and I’m gonna see you guys next week.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to the Focus Secret Podcast. I’m Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark. And this week, we’re tackling what’s thought to be one of the biggest issues for the twenty for election, abortion. Now, you may remember how in twenty twenty two Republicans ran a lot of candidates whose positions on were considered too extreme for a majority of voters. So I was wondering how voters, especially suburban women who flipped from Trump to Biden, are thinking about abortion issue as we head into the twenty twenty four cycle.

We found an interesting dynamic I want to explore. People do not want the extreme restrictions on abortion, many Republicans are pushing. But if Donald Trump is going to be the nominee, which spoiler alert, I’m very sure that he’s going to be. This is not necessarily going to be the most important thing to voters. My guest today has written a great deal on the politics of abortion, Elaine Godfrey, staff writer, the Atlantic, Elaine.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Okay. So we haven’t talked about the GOP primary on the show for a little bit. But you’ve been in New Hampshire covering Nikki Haley.

You have a piece where you call her campaign rallies. The warm waters and the alternate reality. A reality in which Donald j Trump is very old news. So tell us what you’re seeing on the ground, although that is evocative and precise language that I understand deeply.

So I wanted to go see what was appealing to voters about Nikki Haley. I went to two of her events followed her around New Hampshire from one to another and talked to as many people as I could. And these are people who want things to be normal. I had so many people, and I used one quote in the piece who just said, I just want a Republican that’s normal. And that knows what they’re doing and that doesn’t scare me and doesn’t insult people.

It was a comfortable little bubble of people who thought she really could pull it out. And be the nominee and that if they sort of all got behind her, maybe they could overthrow Trump in this primary.

And as you’ve been on the ground there, does seem like a realistic option? How big are these things for Nikki?

How realistic is it I think it’s plausible, I guess. It is very unlikely. It would require Nikki to do really well in all the early states To win South Carolina probably or just have a smashing success there, and Trump is beating her by thirty some points there right now, even though that’s her home state. It would require all of those things, and then it would require basically everyone else in the primary who’s sort of more mainstream to drop out and get behind her and hopefully their voters would all go towards her. Like, there’s just a lot of ifs involved.

Plus, when you’re a front runner, you suddenly have all the scrutiny. Right? This is our first time being sort of front or close to the front of the primary pack She’s gonna have a lot more attack ads to deal with from other candidates, but also just voters are gonna be trying to learn more about her. And she may not sustain her surge because of that.

So how many people are coming to the Nikki rallies? Like, is there suddenly like a surge of interest where more people are showing up because they’re curious or are they kind of these small little alternate realities.

So I went to one event that was pretty small. They small venue so that she can pack them. Yeah. I assume. So we went to a diner, and I think that was pretty standard for her.

Small, a few dozen people, I don’t know, fifty people, maybe something like that. And then we did have a bigger rally in Nashville, New Hampshire. That was pretty big, but, like, we’re not talking anywhere close to Trump size, we’re not talking DeSantis size even. Although, I guess I don’t know in New Hampshire, the comparison between the two, but I’ve been to DeSantis gathering in Iowa, for example, and they are bigger than what Haley got. They’re also like a very specific type of person, right, at all of these events.

It’s like mostly older people, almost entirely white people. You know, and so it’s hard to say, like, how she would do in a state that is more diverse. So I don’t know. They were not that impressive in terms of size. I’ll say that.

Yeah. I think Look, I’d love to engage in some Nikki Haley fantasy politics. I am I am prone to it a little bit, where I think, like, I don’t know. She keeps it kinda close in Iowa and like she exceeds expectation. She comes in second over Ron DeSantis, and then DeSantis has to stay in because you gotta split the Trump vote.

But then she does really well in New Hampshire because a lot of these unaffiliated independents actually show up for her. And they don’t really have a Democratic primary going on. Sorry Dean Phillips, but they don’t really have one. So they come out and vote first, so she actually does way better in New Hampshire. She’s got a little momentum going into South Carolina and Scott and Christie and just based on Hutchinson with his point five percent.

Like, they drop out. And suddenly, she’s hitting, you know, high twenties, but you’re right. Like, the fantasy falls apart in South Carolina because Trump’s gonna do really well in Nevada. Like, she has to win her own state, and I think the chances of that are so small.

Think they’re so small. But, like, that is several months from now. Trump’s court cases have been, like, pretty crazy. He’s been, I mean, things could change. I just don’t see them changing enough where she’s suddenly the favorite of most GOP primary voters.

Like, that just doesn’t seem like leaving me.

Well, let’s use Nikki to transition to our topic today of abortion because Nikki Haley, one of the places she does live in reality, is on abortion. And I would think that that would sort of help her potentially with voters. And when I think back to the twenty twenty two midterms. Like I said at the top, you had all these Republican candidates like Doug Bastriano in Pennsylvania, Tudor Dickson in Michigan, And they were taking these hard line positions on abortions that had no exceptions for rape and incest. And so it was really common for us to hear throughout twenty twenty two that even Republican pro lifers were super uncomfortable with that stance.

Let’s listen to how people were talking about it last year.

I am a pro life advocate. I support it. As a Catholic and everything else, I’m dead against it. But then you you have people that come to you and say, well, what happens if there was incest that it was rape? And now there’s a child involved.

Well, thank you for painting the most grotesque version of what we’re talking about. I’m sure there will be some laws in place to protect that individual. I don’t doubt that. There’s some common decency that has to happen with that.

I’m a Republican bus. I feel like I aligned with most of there about I can tell you an abortion. No. I feel different, but let’s say what the party line is, but that’s okay. You know, I I don’t feel like I should be forced to do I’m a republican.

You must do everything. It probably says, absolutely not. It’s not gonna make me vote for someone else, you know, but if a lot of these would build up or feel different, then who knows what will happen in the future?

The Republican platform seems to be, and these governors around the country are, you know, banning abortions, and then your neighbors can report you if you get one. It sounds like a science fiction, maybe from nineteen seventy two, that’s one thing I disagree with.

I am pro life, but I’m also understanding why women, you know, in in whatever situation, and I find themselves who can feel like that’s their only option. Because even my husband never talked about that last night, we’re like, you know, what do you do if there’s a thirteen, fourteen year old who can’t provide for this child, who can’t do all of these things, and all of these people who you know, are like myself for pro life, I would hope at least that there are if this were to get overturned, they’re willing to come alongside these people and say, let us support you. You know what? If you need financial support, we’re here for that. So all

of those people are twenty twenty Trump voters. A lot of them were two time Trump voters. And this is something that is really common in Republican focus groups. Trump voting focus is that people have very nuanced positions on abortion. And I hear this line all the time.

I think I’ve said it to you actually before, which is because I was sort of laughed the first time I heard it when people were like, well, I’m pro life, but I believe in a woman’s right to choose. And I was like, okay. Well, how’s that work? But actually, that’s a lot of people. I just hear it over and over again where they are both personally pro life, but they also understand that there’s a lot of caveats to this, a lot of nuances, and they are very uncomfortable with overturning Roe v Wade and for women not to be sort of in charge of these decisions.

So you’ve written about how pro lifers are, like, mad at Donald Trump after he seemingly blamed them for the Republican Party’s losses in the midterms early this year and criticized the six weeks band, like the one Ron DeSantis, past in Florida, You wrote most Americans support access to abortion. Trump is the only real contender among Republican presidential candidates acting in a way that acknowledges that fact. I would argue, I guess, Nikki Haley does too. But why don’t you explain? Because I think you’re a hundred percent right about this.

Why don’t you explain how Donald Trump approaches abortion and why that seems to land with voters.

Yeah. I spent a lot of time thinking about how Donald Trump thinks about abortion and whether he’s pro choice or pro life and what he’s trying to project. I guess it doesn’t super matter personally what he is, although in his past life as a Democrat, he was pro choice. But I I think he’s thinking about what can I sort of project that will let voters think what they want of me Like, he wants voters to look at him and see what they wanna see? And so he’s done a lot of waffling on abortion He’s the guy who appointed the justices who took down Roe v Wade, but he’s also the guy who won’t commit to a really strict ban.

Right? He Ron DeSantis strict ban. So he’s able to sort of have it both ways by saying, I think that abortion should be up to the We we shouldn’t do it federally. Now it’s in the state’s hands. I wash my hands of it.

I’m not talking about strict bans. I’m not talking about exceptions. Like, it’s up to the states. And I think that that gives him a lot of room to maneuver, and it gives voters a lot to see in him. Right?

It it gives voters a chance to think what they think. And That is smart. That is, like, politically a smart position. I agree with you. Yes.

I think that Nikki Haley has honed her position on abortion. It’s clearer now than it was. It’s much more coherent. Her sort of launching of her position was sort of murky and messy and now she sounds more like Trump when she about abortion, more moderate, and voters love it. Voters love that.

At least the Republican voters that I talked to did.

Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. I’m worried. We’re gonna keep talking about this. As we go through this because I think Democrats, they are watching these special elections around abortion, and they keep winning them.

They keep winning the abortion question when it’s the only question. And look, if Ron DeSantis was the Republican nominee, I think abortion would be central to the conversation that we’d be having in twenty twenty four. But I do not think Democrats have quite wrapped their heads around the fact, because they think to your point, like you just said, well, okay, but he nominated those three judges that overturned Roe v Wade. And they can hang that around his head. And I think that they can hang that on and they’ll have to.

It’s a really important thing to remind voters of. It’s a tough thing to explain. You’re like, Yeah. I know he appointed those judges, but he just doesn’t read Super pro life to voters. Like, low info voters, swing voters, they view Trump as a cultural moderate because of his previous life, because of the fact that everyone knows this is a guy who has no sense of sexual morality, they don’t believe for a second that this is a pro life person.

It’s the same way everybody kinda just, like, fakes it through the bible stuff, like, when it’s does like a fake Bible verse. It’s just like, okay. Sure. You’ve checked that box, but we all know that’s not really who you are. Anyway, I’m just I’m just confirming your point.

I don’t know if there’s something you wanna add to that.

No. He’s very good at making voters think he’s socially moderate. I think he is, frankly. Like, I I think he’s good at it because he is. Right?

Like, you hear Mike Pence talk and you know what that dude thinks about all kinds of social issues. But, like, same way you hear trump and you think, okay. Do you really hate abortion? Like, there’s no way. And I don’t know if we’re gonna talk about this later.

But everyone in the focus groups when you asked, like, what does Trump think about a portion? They’re all like, oh, he’s pro choice. Even the people who, like, support Trump were like, yeah, he’s pro choice. He’s probably paid for abortions. Like, yeah.

Everyone seems to have this implicit understanding whether they like Trump or not.

Hundred percent. No. We’re gonna place on those clips because they are extremely telling. We ask just like, do you think he’s a moderate? Everyone’s like, raised their hand.

We’re like, do you think he’s extreme on a or modern on abortion, and everyone picked moderate. But I wanna talk quickly though about swing voters on this because what’s interesting too on this point of like, how much is this gonna be an issue swing voters never bring up abortion just organically. Now this was kinda true in twenty twenty two though as well. Like, if you just don’t ask about it, it doesn’t often come up because the economy always comes up first. Like, this is what people care about.

But when you ask them about it directly, they get super worried about it. They have this, like, sense of disquiet about the future of abortion rights in America. Let’s listen.

I would live with two grown females who are women’s livers, abortion.

The number one thing on my girls list, and they have They’ve been right. I can’t say they’re wrong.

I read a story the other day where this father raped his thirteen year old daughter, and she had to have the baby. That is disgusting. Like, what in the hell you know, so it’s like I don’t know. I just want everything to make I want everything to be safe. I want everybody to have a choice.

Every circumstance is different, but I’m just disgusted that it’s like, limited. I think it’s ridiculous.

I have two boys, nineteen and twenty one in college. You know, the viral ages of boys and stuff So having forbid, a girl gets pregnant or something, you know, is that’s a life decision. You know, I’m in Arizona. We’re one of the worst in the country because, you know, with all our stuff. So Yes.

I can go to California and other places. And, again, it’s just not fair to have generally the white Christian man make choices for us ladies when this is Oh, scared.

All these states are individually deciding. And I think that part is weird. As well because it should be like a united front. I don’t like how some states are like, no, and this is the rule here, and you have to go whatever. It’s like What if there’s an emergency situation, but you’re in a state that’s has a negative, whatever?

Like, that’s ridiculous.

Well, I just think I’m really concerned on a federal level because if we get a president in there that say Ron DeSantis, they could try to flip that. And then it’s the whole United States. Then there’s no place safe.

So you wrote a piece back in June with the headline. It’s abortion stupid. And you wrote about how Democrats are playing into the swing voter fear, the one we just heard, then you talked about how they’re trying to put this issue on the ballot in as many states as possible in twenty twenty four. At the same time, Republican governors like Brian Kemp, Georgia, Mike Duine in Ohio, won pretty comfortably in twenty twenty two, despite passing very restrictive abortion laws. So can you tease this out for us?

Like, do you think that Democrats are overconfident in how this plays overstating the electoral benefits, or how do you think it’s gonna work?

I think this is not a number one issue for many voters. And I think when it’s all wrapped up in other things, this is not what makes most voters go to the polls. Unless, this issue is by itself. This is what you said earlier. Like, This is a very straightforward issue for voters in Ohio.

They can go. They can vote to add an abortion amendment to their constitution or not. The right to abortion. Even with voters I talked to, like Nikki Haley voters, Trump voters, this is just not their number one thing. It’s hard for me to square the results of twenty twenty two.

Because I know that abortion was very important to a lot of voters, but I think that actually it was sort of extremism in general, Republican extremism in general that got people to the polls. A lot of the election denial stuff. That was our first election since January sixth. That I think was a bigger factor, not that abortion wasn’t, obviously, but I don’t know. It’s really hard to tease out.

But again, I think it does better as an issue on its own.

Yeah. I hundred percent agree with that. And also on twenty twenty two, so it’s funny because I move in this democracy community where people kinda wanna be like, it was because of democracy and defending and then you hear the abortion people say, what was the abortion question? And I was like, it’s sort of like, The Republicans nominated lunatics

Yeah.

Who took extreme positions on abortion, extreme positions on election denialism and also, like, wrote letters to the unabomber. It all wrapped up into this package of these guys are nuts. Look at this weirdo. And, like, Democrats to their credit put up your Mark Kelly’s boring Katie Hobbs who was, like, not a good candidate, but, like, inoffensive in the way that Carrie Lake was deeply offensive. Right?

And so I think that that’s what was going on. And so people who are like, no, it’s this thing. I think that, like, well, voters kinda like, they get the vibes of the aggregate. And so and I’ll say this. One of the things I talked about in twenty twenty two is it started to become conventional wisdom towards the end that Democrats strike met abortion too much.

And I actually disagreed with that because of this reason. Because for me, what I felt like I heard in the focus groups is I don’t think about abortion unless you ask me about it or unless it’s like you make it top of my me, but the second you put it top of mind, I’m like, oh, yeah, I don’t like that. And so I actually thought it was good. I thought it was right for Democrats to remind people of this. And I think that the challenge of twenty four in making it an issue is gonna be that Trump just isn’t the same as Blake Masters and is gonna point to people like to stand us to be like, that’s crazy.

Like, he’s already doing. And so I wanna dig into this just like a little bit more of this idea about the way people talk about the economy, And so we asked women in the focus groups how they prioritized abortion relative to other issues. So some of these women voted for Trump in twenty twenty, some voted for Biden, but we found that the economy was more top of mind. So let’s hear how a fairly pro choice crowd talked about it starting with one woman talking about her vote in twenty twenty two.

I wasn’t even really thinking about it, to be honest with you. I mean, I’m more interested in the economy and getting things back to how it used to be somewhat. I mean, no matter what I would have probably done, it probably wouldn’t have done anything anyway. That’s how I thought of it back then. So didn’t really think that my vote was gonna be something that would be life changing.

The mortgage interest rates are just over the top I feel sorry for the young kids. You know, they said they were raising the rates. They keep raising them and raising them. And it’s not helping the housing market by me at all. You know, the houses are still high.

They’re higher than they were. And the rates are still extremely high. And, you know, I have two kids out of college as well, and you know, I heard another parent say that they want their, you know, sons and daughters to be able to buy homes, and it’s just not possible.

So I’m still mainly focused on the financial side of things. So thinking about taxes, the economy as a whole, jobs that definitely need filled because so many places are understaffed and short staffed that could adequately be staffed, but aren’t So the economy, obviously, would be number one. Just the whole taxes, getting the inflation under control, education, making sure parents are aware of what’s going on in that. And, if I hear anything with failing out people, it’s not my vote. We’re just having too much of that.

So here’s the thing that’s interesting to me. Now this is like super by the way, just like people talking about the economy, that’s just where people’s heads are right now. And as much as it looks good on paper or we’re getting better, this is just how people sound. But, like, a lot of these guys are sort of middle aged, and they are talking about things like mortgages and interest rates, education, etcetera, because they’re in their forties and fifties. Talk to me about young people though.

Like, is it possible that for the younger set it’s easy for a fifty year old woman to maybe say, like, I’m not really thinking that much about abortion. But what about a twenty five year old woman? Is it gonna be mobilizing for that set? Cause right now, that’s set that I think the Democrats are super worried about. Yeah.

I think it is more mobilizing for that set. For younger women. Younger voters I talk to generally cite that. And younger men, younger younger voters in general cite that as a number one issue. Is it gonna be mobilized I mean, it’s really hard to mobilize young people.

I think that this is where you’re right. The Democrats have to with Trump, they’re gonna struggle, but with candidates who’ve said extreme things about abortion, supported extreme, bans, strict bans, no exceptions, etcetera. Like, they’re gonna have to emphasize that hard. To get these people out. I think they should worry about this group, but I think that they, like, know what they need to do to get this group out.

The extremism plays well with them for sure. And just sort of this general, like, moving backwards idea, voters I talk to, it’s more about what it says about a candidate when they support abortion restrictions, like, it just makes them seem sort of old fashioned, sort of, like, just way more conservative than even young Republicans are today. And so I think that that is something Democrats will have to stress a lot. And I don’t think they’re too confident. I think Democrats I’ve talked to about their abortion messaging are nervous.

I mean, I think that they’re right to emphasize abortion, but I think that they will struggle with for sure in making Trump seem extreme to these younger voters. I don’t know how they do that, frankly.

Yeah. Did I suggest Democrats were confident? Because Let me just rephrase if I did because, like, now that I talk to more Democrats, right? I spent the first part of my career really just talking to Republicans. Republicans were always confident they’re gonna win, and Democrats are never confident they’re gonna win.

It is a different world. Something different in the DNA where, Just the Democrats are never confident Republicans always are. I don’t know why that is.

The panic is high all the time. All the time. All the time.

So I wanna turn to Ohio. So as of this taping, Ohio is about to pass a constitutional amendment issue one that would prohibit the state from banning abortion before the point of viability, which is thought to be in the twenty two to twenty four week range. The state could still ban abortion after that point with exceptions for the life and health of the mother. If issue one fails, it would allow state to pass more restrictive abortion laws, possibly including the six week ban that briefly went into effect after Dobs, but is still tied up in the courts. Before the vote, we talked to a group of Ohio women who voted for Democrat Sherrod Brown for Senate in twenty eighteen, and then trump for twenty twenty.

And it’s pretty easy to see why this issue is likely to pass. Let’s listen.

If they’re gonna force women to do things and not have a choice in it, then they need to go after the other side enforce child support and force men to take care of their responsibilities, enforce jail time if that’s the case. And force it on the other side because I feel like it’s all one-sided. There’s still a choice, but there is a cutoff. I do believe that there should be something because that’s pretty far, you know, twenty two weeks. That’s pretty far along.

But, yes, I want there to be a choice. Sometimes the woman, the mom doesn’t even know she has a condition that she could die from. So, yeah, I like the cutoff. Too. Like, it shouldn’t be forever.

But if there is this horrible disease that pops up, even I think they should have a choice. You know. And then the medical marijuana, I’m okay with too.

I definitely think pro choice, but there’s a certain point where I mean, it’s almost like a person. So I don’t think he should cut off past twenty two weeks.

I’m most lipro life. But, again, I think there are circumstances and nobody can decide for that person, like, people have found out, you know, they had cancer and needed treatment And they couldn’t do the treatment. So, like, to have to make that decision is just hard. And for someone to say, you don’t even have that decision to make. I don’t agree with that.

I’m definitely pro life if it’s at all possible, but I actually have one of my kids is a doctor in that field and to outlaw abortion to save the mother’s life is just insane. And somebody who is like ten or twelve or a rape victim, they don’t know at six or eight weeks, you know, and it’s gonna get to the point you can’t even give them options if all the states around us are also outlawing it.

I’ve now done a lot of groups with women about abortion over the last, you know, four years or so. And one of the things that’s amazing to me specifically when you talk to women, it’s true of men too, but like women, especially how much they understand the nuances of this Like, they know somebody who had an outlier event, right, where, like, it’s just not that simple, and they will tell you about it. And so people do seem kind of to be most comfortable with this idea of I wanna cut off. I want it to be late enough that people would definitely know they were pregnant. And, like, that they understood what was happening, but I also want even at that point for there to be exceptions for rape incest life for the mother.

And it also seemed maybe you know about this that right for the Dodd’s decision, there was this horrible story of a ten year old rape victim in Ohio who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion. It seemed like that sat with people. Like, they heard that. And that was true in Michigan too. Like, Tudor Dixon, early on, said that a kid who was raped, like, a twelve year old who was raped, who have to carry a baby to term.

And, like, people are, like, absolutely not on that stuff. So, yeah, what have you seen in your reporting on that

Yeah. I mean, while I’ll say, like, listening to these clips, voters, voters don’t always have nuanced perspectives on things. On this issue, they absolutely do.

Great point.

Because, like you said, everyone knows someone who’s dealt with this. Like, there were, like, five different examples, rape, cancer treatment, like all these different things that could happen. Like, women are well aware of why people get abortions and why this is an option. And, like, Yeah. When I talk to people and pulling theirs this out, your focus groups bear this out.

When I talk to people, they say, almost always, Like, I’m pro life personally, but there should be a choice, and there should be a limit. I mean, that’s what Roe v wade was, which is sort of the interesting thing about all this is, like, twenty two weeks was sort of the limit then as well, viability. But people support that. People want to limit, but they want the option. It is strange to me that so many Republican nominees, Republican candidates aren’t saying that, aren’t acknowledging this nuance as well aren’t supporting fifteen weeks or twenty two weeks limitations because they just seem like they would be so much more successful if they did because that’s where most voters seem to be.

Yeah. Totally. And actually, we heard a lot of talk in these things about upper limits on allowing abortion. Right? People did want that.

But you wrote a piece this past spring about a physician in Colorado who’s one of the few that specializes in these late term abortions, and he’s pretty hardcore about his moral comfort with them. Can you tell us a bit about your experience talking to that guy and how the pro choice side can keep together a coalition that includes him and these women who are more conservative in their orientation. Right? Like, how do pro choice activists deal with that tension?

Yeah. I mean, this is One of the hardest things pro choice activists have to deal with is the fact that late abortions happen. They are not very common. Obviously. They’re, you know, nine percent or something of abortions.

They’re small. But this man, doctor. Hern, in Colorado, he performs abortions only in the third trimester of pregnancy. And they’re often for fetal abnormalities, horrible diagnoses that you find out later in pregnancy, but they’re also for children who don’t know their pregnant who’ve been raped who’ve, you know, had sex as kids and and they don’t know their pregnant till it’s too late, there’s all these scenarios. That he provides abortions for.

There are also just women who suddenly realize like, oh, I can’t support a baby. I have to get an abortion at thirty weeks or whatever it is. And he’ll do it. And his argument is This is not a person. My allegiance is to the woman who is the fully fledged human who makes the decision.

He’s taking the pro choice argument to its furthest conclusion. And I just thought he was fascinating because I think the pro choice movement would really like to not talk about him and these kinds of procedures. They’re very difficult to talk about. They’re difficult to justify. Voters don’t like them.

Most voters do not support or understand, frankly, what abortion and late pregnancy looks like, why it’s done, what it’s for, that kind of thing. How do they reconcile that these abortions happen, I think that they emphasize the nuance. Pro choice activists have to emphasize the nuance of why you might get an abortion this late and hope to appeal to voters’ sense of understanding and willingness to, like, embrace nuance. But I think I don’t know if they’ll be successful. I mean, we already have viability limits in a lot of states.

People don’t like late term abortion. They don’t like thinking about it. Nikki Haley, part of her some speech is always. I’m personally pro life, but I don’t judge if you’re pro choice, but can’t we all agree that late term abortion is abhorrent. And everyone says, yeah, and they clap.

And, you know, I think that’s where most voters are. I think it’s going to be a real challenge for Democrats to, like, defend that position. I don’t know Democrats that do that really well. I don’t know pro choice activists who figured out how to build a tent that includes people who don’t want limits and people who want limits. I don’t know that they’re doing a very good job of that right now.

Yeah. I think that’s because there’s something about us as human beings. Right? Because I was listening to you talk about the scenarios, and I was like, okay. Yeah.

Tell me at thirty weeks that it was a twelve year old who was raped. She gets an abortion. Like, I’m just I’m making my own moral calculation. Tell me that it’s a fetal abnormality, something that is just horrific for the, like, absolutely. Tell me it’s somebody who’s decided at thirty weeks that they can’t financially support the baby.

I’m suddenly like, well, this is where adoption is a great option. And this is where I think this doctor is butts up against for a lot of women, actually, the experience that they have. I didn’t carry children myself, but my wife did. And when, you know, the baby’s kicking and stuff, I think that’s why you have the exceptions in there. You have the reception for rape, you have the exceptions for the life of the mother.

I don’t know that the exceptions for, like, I don’t feel like doing this anymore, like, feels great to people, and it doesn’t feel great to me. I think it’s good to have doctors who have a clear sense of like, I will certainly do this for the twelve year old rate victim. I think that the moral calculation, though, overall, I’m not sure I can quite get there with him.

Yeah. I mean, people did not like that story.

Yeah.

It is hard to wrap your brain around what he does. And like yeah. I mean, a lot of people most people, frankly, disagree with what he does. I think it’s interesting too. A lot of pro choice activists and people who are pro choice Will Saletan term abortions only happen for health reasons or rape and incest reasons.

And that is frankly not true. In fact, doctor Hern told me that the opposite is true. Most actually happen for reasons other than health reasons. And I think wrapping your head around that is complicated for people and very difficult. And, like, I’m surprised Republicans haven’t, like, And that they have to a certain extent, but, like, really latched on to those extremes of Democrats and forced them to sort of account for that.

I think that they might get somewhere if they did that.

It’s like such a weird tick of this Republican party is, like, rather than because I think they do argue about the stream on abortion, but it’s like they say this thing about they abort a baby after it’s been born. And, like, they say this cartoonish things that nobody’s like, that’s not a thing that happens. Like, you’re not executing children after they come out.

No. You don’t have to make up something. Like, you have real things you could criticize. I don’t yeah. I don’t understand that.

I mean, this is where nationally, like, this Ohio thing seems like I don’t know, kind of like where the country seems like it would land, right, is is that we didn’t like the heartbeat bill. That was too extreme. But twenty two weeks plus the exceptions feels about right to me, not me Sarah Longwell that feels like the voter. I mean, it actually feels okay to me too, but, like, the voters really feel like that’s where they are.

Yep. A hundred percent. We’re talking about generations here. I think any limit like that might be harder for younger people, but older people. My mom, pro choice, MSNBC Lib, loves Rachel Madow, she wants a limit.

At twenty two weeks, that seems reasonable to her. And I think she’s sort of representative of a lot of people. And I think that’s a very consensus position at this point.

Yeah. And honestly, more bills like this, I mean, could go a long way to healing or not healing, but, like, taking one of these deep, deep dividing issues off the table if we could have more states pass a consensus issue. But, like, This to me, this twenty two week thing in Ohio is like the kind of thing I could see Donald Trump trying to do.

And I Will Saletan pro life movement, the anti abortion activists will not be happy with that. Right? They find fifteen week bills just awful, abhorrent, because most abortions still happen before fifteen weeks. Right? And so They have argued many times in interviews to me, like a six week ban is ideal because that’s before most occur.

Most occur what’s somewhere between, like, seven or eight weeks and fifteen weeks. They would not be satisfied, but that’s why I don’t know if that would take their rage off the table at all if more laws like this pass because they want to get rid of abortion. And so you’re always gonna have that wing of the party pushing for that.

Yeah. Well, sometimes hardcore activists on both sides, if they’re unhappy and eighty six percent of Americans are happy, like, maybe where we should be, more often,

Yep.

But what do I know? I’m just I’m just talking for the voters here.

No.

It’s right.

We promised some sound of these swing voters who understand that what trump did where he made his alliance with pro lifers that resulted in Roe getting overturned. Like, they know he did that, but they also know he’s not of the pro lifers.

And they don’t seem too scared that

he’s gonna push for a national abortion ban. Let’s listen to some swing voters.

I’m a hundred percent sure he’s pro choice. He became pro life to run as a Republican. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s even paid for a war ins himself. I think if, let’s say, one of his daughters got pregnant and she wanted to get an abortion, I’m sure he’d pay for it and drive her himself. For other people, there’s a chance he doesn’t care, but I think personally he is poor choice.

I think, like, sorry, buddy, put the right people in the Supreme Court for the people that want a pro life sort of realignment.

Whatever, whatever is basics

to audience wants him to be at the moment.

Yeah. You never seems to give a straight answer.

I don’t think he cares one way or the other.

I really don’t either. No.

Paying for a few abortions in his lifetime plan. He’s gonna be real.

He’s the one who, you know, brought some of these guys into the Supreme Court

Because that’s what he thought would get him the votes. He was not none of that was his own position on it. He was just That was a business deal. I’ll give you one if you give me the votes I need.

He’s gonna have to kind of weave his way in between. He’s not losing issue because a lot of Republicans throughout the country just went too far with it, practically almost banning abortion totally. But then he put the justices on the bank who made that happen. And so that’s a tough one for him. He’s gotta kinda play both sides.

While I don’t think necessarily personally, he has a strong opinion about

it, I think he’s absolutely aligned himself with the far right base on that issue. And, a lot of issues. I think that he’s gone pretty extreme right. And, I think that would continue for him.

He has to for the evangelical base. If he doesn’t align with the pro right group, evangelicals will drop him in an instant because they know morally He’s deficient.

Okay. So first of all, the funniest thing in this one is the idea that Trump would actively drive one of his daughters somewhere. If they got an abortion as opposed to just being, like, having, I don’t know, somebody else, like, and he’d be involved at all in this, like parenting decision. So hard

to me. Yeah.

Yeah. Sure. But they sort of do have his number on the idea of, like, this is a guy making a deal. With people that he needs to ally himself with for political reasons. And deep down, they just don’t think he means it, which means that they’re not that scared of you do hear some people kinda being like, well, this alliance with the far right.

So I guess my question, I’m not asking you to be like a democratic strategist or anything, but I guess I do wonder how how do Democrats as you’ve been reporting on it and and looking at this issue. How do they effectively hang this issue around Trump? If voters don’t really view him as threatening, and he also comes out for a, like, a national abortion ban that seems reasonable.

I mean, that is the worst case scenario for Democrats. If trump comes out for like a twenty two week or fifteen week ban, I think I think that sounds reasonable to a lot of people. That’s gonna be hard for Democrats to beat him as extreme. What they’ve told me is, like, talk as much as possible about how he nominated these justices who got rid of Roe v Wade. I guess talk about how he’s really unpredictable on this issue.

He’s flip flops so much. You can’t trust that he’s not gonna pass something stricter because he has No principles. Right? I think that’s what Democrats would say. It’s like, seriously, you don’t, like, at least with Ron DeSantis, we know what we’re gonna get.

It’s gonna be bad. With Trump, it could be anything. It’s a harder case to make for sure, but I think that that’s what they do. But I don’t know because Trump gets into office. He doesn’t have to appeal to anyone.

If he’s president, this is it for him. Right? He’s not gonna go for reelection after this. So I think that there’s also this element of, like, he’s not beholden to pro life groups anymore. He’s not trying to get reelected.

So there’s the reverse argument, which is, like, he doesn’t owe them anything. He doesn’t have to do any of that. He can, you know, build the wall or whatever he’s doing is wants to do most as president. Was talking to Kelly and Conway recently about this. I talked to her for that story and have been following her advice to him.

And this is her advice to Republicans and to Trump right now is propose a fifteen week ban or twenty weeks or whatever it is and sound really reasonable. Democrats can’t get you on this. And I think that she’s kind of right. I don’t know how they do it other than to hang the spring quarter on his neck. I also frankly just think that, like, People know trump by now.

This isn’t gonna change anybody’s mind. I don’t think. Tell me if I’m wrong. Like, swing voters know him. They have his number.

So I’m not sure they’re gonna be persuaded that he’s one way or another on this. Yeah. And that’s why I asked the question about young people.

Yeah. Because, you know, I do think that there’s a lot that’s baked on this issue and others with swing voters. And that it actually a lot of this look, I think you gotta persuade on fight on the persuasion side. That’s work that I do and that I care about. Yeah.

But I also think that a lot of it for Biden is is just an enthusiasm problem. And I guess if I were trying to build a strategy that increased turnout among sort of less enthusiastic voters, this would be an issue I would put on the top of that. The problem is is that Trump doesn’t create the same motivation that Ron DeSantis or somebody else does. Yeah. And so look, I could end up being wrong because I we don’t know the the issue in Ohio hasn’t passed yet, but I presume it’s gonna be a win for the twenty two weeks and this sort of version, which will overrule, right, this, like, six week thing that they had before, and that’ll just be another win for sort of the pro choice side of things.

And I think that that might be giving people a slightly false sense of potency for this issue when it comes to battling Trump. But I’ve watched your reporting on this and I’ve been interested because You have covered a lot about how this has been a catalytic issue in a lot of these other states and Democrats clearly using as a strategy to put it on ballots, wherever they can, And so I’m wondering strategically, like, how much this issue can be used as a mobilizing effort?

I think it still could be mobilizing. If it’s Trump and they want young people to show up, They have to also just talk about how he’s unpredictable and extreme on lots of things and say he has no principles. He doesn’t care. Maybe one way is to say, the house is really conservative. If Republicans get Congress, and then we have Trump as president.

He might sign anything. Like, maybe it’s not his idea to pursue a national abortion ban, but we have a really, you know, pro life, very conservative House, they might give him something really strict. And you know what? He might sign it because he doesn’t care. And I think that Trump is really proud of being the most pro life president in history or whatever he calls himself, he says that about himself.

So maybe he wants to cement his legacy. Maybe he wants to pursue this kind of thing. One other thing, pro life activists have told me we don’t necessarily see a ban passing. We’re not really pursuing that, a federal ban. We see the Comstock act as our next move.

Oh, sorry. You’re gonna have to tell me what that is.

Okay. Sorry. It’s a little on the weeds, but, like, This is the eighteen seventy three, I think, legislation that banned the sending of, like, contraception and scandalous things in the mail. So they want Trump to tell this department of justice to enforce this law. And ban people from being able to send abortion pills, abortion equipment through the mail.

This is their next move. I think this is more important to them are more plausible to them than a national ban, a federal ban.

I think that’s super interesting because I to me, the danger from Trump is that Trump says, I’m gonna propose twenty week, twenty two week thing that makes me look incredibly reasonable. And that puts Democrats on the defensive of having to explain why you do an abortion up in the twenties and thirties. And, like, People do not like that. Right? And that puts you in that doctor territory.

Yep. That’s democrat on defense. You start saying that Trump gonna ban birth control, that’s Democrats on offense. Yep. And it goes to your point about going backwards.

Like, what are you talking about? This has been available forever, This is a normal course of life. You’re changing that. That feels weird. I think that is catalyzing.

I personally think that the way that abortion ends up playing against Trump has gotta be sort of the way it was in twenty twenty two, where it’s not the thing

Yeah.

It’s not that he’s just an election denier. It’s not that he put three Supreme Court justices on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe eight. It’s that he’s bonkers. It’s that he’s nuts. And all of those things are like data points into why he’s nuts and extreme and absolutely unfit to be president.

And I saw voters in twenty twenty two reject that. My caveat to that is that it was an off year election in which the people who turn out just for Trump didn’t turn out. And so that’s why it comes down to then really like an enthusiasm thing, and that’s where think Joe Biden’s really vulnerable on this enthusiasm issue, but to the extent that abortion can play a role in that, that can be helpful.

Right. Right. Every point you have against Trump, how do you make it just, like, so exciting to voters? And, like, you know, when this guy’s run twice already and, like, You’ve already made the case against him twice already. And if trump is the nominee, the case against him has to be everything.

It can’t be just he’s extreme on portion because that’s a hard picture to paint. It has to be he’s a crazy guy. He’s a coop. He’s extreme. He’s, you know, a crevice Yeah.

I think it’d be a lot more of an amalgam of things for sure.

Yeah. Alright, Elaine Godfrey. Thank so much for joining us.

Thanks, Sarah.

Check out Elaine’s work at the Atlantic. She’s one of my favorite people to read, and thanks to all of you for listening the Focus Secret Podcast. We’ll be back next week. Take care, guys.