Trump says women won’t be ‘thinking about abortion’ if he’s elected, casting himself as their ‘protector’

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump cast himself as a “protector” of women at a Pennslyvania rally Monday evening and claimed that American women won’t be “thinking about abortion” if he’s elected.

“I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had a problem. But the fake news keeps saying women don’t like me,” Trump said in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “I don’t believe it.”

The former president claimed women are “less safe,” “much poorer” and are “less healthy” now compared to when he was president and vowed to end what he described as their “national nightmare.”

“Because I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector,” Trump said.

Women, he added, “will be happy, healthy, confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has garnered sustained support from women in the presidential election as her campaign leans into reproductive rights as a core issue. Polls have shown Trump with an advantage among men who are likely to vote, but Harris with a huge edge with women.

Abortion is a topic that has been a huge Democratic advantage on the campaign trail since the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority that includes three members appointed by Trump, overturned Roe v. Wade’s nationwide abortion rights protections in 2022 — opening the door to a patchwork of state-level restrictions.

Americans remain broadly opposed to the ruling, according to CNN polling, and its proven to be thorny campaign issue for Republicans in down-ballot races.

Bernie Moreno, the GOP candidate for US Senate in Ohio, said at a town hall Friday that abortion is the only issue many suburban women vote on, and questioned why women over 50 would care about the issue, according to video obtained by WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio.

A spokesperson for Moreno later sought to call his remarks “a tongue-in-cheek joke,” though his opponent, incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, has already seized on the comments.

Trump appeared to be referring to Democrats later in his speech Monday when he said, “all they can talk about is abortion.”

“The country is falling apart. We’re going to end up in World War III, and all they can talk about is abortion. That’s all they talk about, and it really no longer pertains, because we’ve done something on abortion that nobody thought was possible,” he said in reference to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision.

Trump had previewed his Monday evening appeal to female women voters with a post on his Truth Social platform last week. American women, he wrote in all-caps, “are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago” before vowing to “fix all of that.”

CNN’s Eric Bradner contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
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