Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday night for the first time said he would veto a federal abortion ban, a position he has shied away from declaring and is likely to upset his anti-abortion supporters.
In the middle of the vice presidential debate, Trump posted to social media that “everyone knows that I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!)”
Trump had not previously said if he would veto a national ban. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance, said in August that the former president would veto a national abortion ban, but Trump said during the Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, “I didn’t discuss it with JD.”
During that same debate, Harris said, “Understand, if Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban.”
Trump responded that was a “lie” and he’s “not signing a ban, and there’s no reason to sign a ban because we’ve gotten what everybody wanted.”
Jim Vondruska / Getty Images
Democrats have tried to tie Trump to the abortion restrictions enacted in 22 states since Roe v. Wade was reversed, as well as to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 initiative. Project 2025 says “the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion.”
Trump had boasted about putting three conservative justices on the Supreme Court who were crucial to overturning Roe v. Wade. In August, Trump said he will vote against a proposed constitutional amendment in Florida which would undo the state’s six-week abortion ban. However, just days prior to that, he had said in an interview that six weeks “is too short.”
“There has to be more time,” he said at the time. “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”
He has insisted that giving states’ the authority to make abortion law is what people wanted.
In Tuesday’s debate, Vance said he never supported a national ban, although he said when running for Senate in 2022 that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” Vance also disputed the moderators’ calling a federal 15-week restriction a “ban,” saying he supported a “minimum national standard.”
Trump’s post Tuesday also falsely claimed that Democrats support late-term abortions and the “execution” of babies after they are born, a false claim he has repeated on the campaign trail.
Melissa Quinn
contributed to this report.
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