Donald Trump was on the verge of backing a 16-week federal abortion ban earlier this year when aides staged an intervention.
According to Time magazine’s cover story on his selection as its 2024 Person of the Year, Trump’s aides first raised concerns in mid-March that the abortion cutoff being pushed by some allies would be stricter than existing law in numerous states. It was seen as a potential political liability amid ongoing fallout over the overturning of Roe v. Wade by a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that includes three justices nominated by Trump in his first term.
Trump political director James Blair went to work assembling a slide deck — eventually titled “How a national abortion ban will cost Trump the election” — that argued a 16-week ban would hurt the Republican candidate in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the magazine reported.
“After flipping through Blair’s presentation” on a flight to a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in April, Trump dropped the idea, according to the report. “So we leave it to the states, right?” Trump was quoted as saying. He soon released a video articulating that position.
At the time, Trump’s campaign denied that he was considering supporting the 16-week ban, calling it “fake news” and saying Trump planned to “negotiate a deal” on abortion if elected to the White House.
Here are other highlights from the story and the president-elect’s 65-minute interview with the magazine:
Jan. 6 pardons could start in the ‘first nine minutes’
Trump reaffirmed his plans to pardon most of those convicted for their actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. “It’s going to start in the first hour,” he said of the pardons. “Maybe the first nine minutes.”
Trump said he would look at individuals on a “case-by-case” basis, but that “a vast majority of them should not be in jail.”
More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riot that left more than 100 police officers injured and sent lawmakers running into hiding as they met to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. More than 1,000 defendants have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial of charges, including misdemeanor trespassing offenses, assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.
Trump is open to holding detained migrants in camps
Trump insisted he has the authority to use the military to assist with his promised mass deportations, even though, as his interviewers noted, the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of the military in domestic law enforcement.
“It doesn’t stop the military if it’s an invasion of our country, and I consider it an invasion of our country,” he said. “I’ll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows. And I think in many cases, the sheriffs and law enforcement is going to need help.”
Trump did not deny that camps would be needed to hold detained migrants as they are processed for deportation.
“Whatever it takes to get them out. I don’t care,” he said. “I hope we’re not going to need too many because I want to get them out and I don’t want them sitting in camp for the next 20 years.”
Trump told Time he does not plan to restore the policy of separating children from their families to deter border crossings, but he did not rule it out. The practice led to thousands of children being separated from their parents and was condemned around the globe as inhumane.
“I don’t believe we’ll have to because we will send the whole family back,” he said. “I would much rather deport them together, yes, than separate.”
Musk prioritizes the country over his business interests, Trump insists
Trump dismissed the idea that Elon Musk will face conflicts of interest as he takes the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory group that Trump has selected him to lead. The panel is supposed to find waste and cut regulations, including many that could affect Musk’s wide-ranging interests, which include electric cars, rockets and telecommunications.
“I don’t think so,” Trump said. “I think that Elon puts the country long before his company. … He considers this to be his most important project.”
Trump acknowledges the difficulty of lowering grocery prices
Trump lowered expectations about his ability to drive down grocery prices.
“I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will,” he said.
Trump plans ‘virtual closure’ of the Education Department
Trump said he is planning “a virtual closure” of the “Department of Education in Washington.”
“You’re going to need some people just to make sure they’re teaching English in the schools,” he said. “But we want to move education back to the states.”
Yet Trump has proposed exerting enormous influence over schools. He has threatened to cut funding for schools with vaccine mandates while forcing them to “teach students to love their country” and promote “the nuclear family,” including “the roles of mothers and fathers” and the “things that make men and women different and unique.”
Trump offers conflicting answers on future of abortion pills
Asked to clarify whether he was committed to preventing the Food and Drug Administration from stripping access to abortion pills, Trump replied, “It’s always been my commitment.”
But Trump has offered numerous conflicting stances on the issue, including to Time.
Earlier in the interview, he was asked whether he would promise that his FDA would not do anything to limit access to medication abortion or abortion pills. “We’re going to take a look at all of that,” he said, before calling the prospect “very unlikely.”
“Look, I’ve stated it very clearly and I just stated it again very clearly. I think it would be highly unlikely. I can’t imagine, but with, you know, we’re looking at everything, but highly unlikely. I guess I could say probably as close to ruling it out as possible, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to do anything now.”
Trump says US support for Ukraine will be leverage for a deal with Russia
Pressed on whether he would abandon Ukraine in its efforts to stave off Russia’s invasion, Trump said he would use U.S. support for Kyiv as leverage against Moscow in negotiating an end to the war.
“I want to reach an agreement,” he said, “and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon.”
Does he trust Netanyahu? ‘I don’t trust anybody’
Trump would not commit to supporting a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state alongside Israel, as he had previously.
“I support whatever solution we can do to get peace,” he said. “There are other ideas other than two state, but I support whatever, whatever is necessary to get not just peace, a lasting peace. It can’t go on where every five years you end up in tragedy. There are other alternatives.”
Asked whether he trusted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he told Time: “I don’t trust anybody.”
War with Iran? ‘Anything can happen,’ he says
Trump would not rule out the possibility of war with Iran during his second term. “Anything can happen. It’s a very volatile situation,” he said.
Trump mum on conversations with Putin
Asked if he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the Nov. 5 election, Trump continued to play coy: “I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate.”
Trump insists he had the votes to confirm Gaetz as attorney general
Trump insisted that his bid to install Matt Gaetz as attorney general ”wasn’t blocked. I had the votes (in the Senate) if I needed them, but I had to work very hard.”
When the scope of resistance to the former Republican congressman from Florida became clear, Trump said, “I talked to him, and I said, ‘You know, Matt, I don’t think this is worth the fight.'”
Gaetz pulled out amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations, and Trump tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for the Cabinet post.
Trump is open to changes for childhood vaccines
Trump, who has named anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, did not rule out the possibility of eliminating some childhood vaccinations even though they have been proved safe in extensive studies and real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades and are considered among the most effective public health measures in modern history.
Pressed on whether “getting rid of some vaccinations” — neither Trump nor the interviewers specified which ones — might be part of the plan to improve the health of the country, Trump responded: “It could if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial, but I don’t think it’s going to be very controversial in the end.”
Trump weighs in on family political dynasty
“I think there could be, yeah,” Trump said of the prospect of others in his family continuing in his footsteps.
He pointed to daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee and is now being talked about as a potential replacement for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Trump has chosen for secretary of state.
Melania Trump will return to the White House, he says
Trump said the former and soon-to-be first lady Melania Trump will be joining him at the White House during second term and will “be active, when she needs to be.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “She’s very beloved by the people, Melania. And they like the fact that she’s not out there in your face all the time for many reasons.”
