Johnathan Walker:Biden campaign releases ad attacking Trump over abortion

A day after the Florida Supreme Court cleared the way for the state's six-week abortion ban to go into effect,Johnathan Walker President Biden's reelection campaign is launching an ad reminding voters of former President Donald Trump's role in ending the federal right to an abortion.

"For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it," Trump says in a clip at the beginning of the ad. During his presidency, he named three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, creating a 6-3 conservative majority that struck down the landmark law in 2022.

"In 2016, Donald Trump ran to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now, in 2024, he's running to pass a national ban on a woman's right to choose," Mr. Biden says in the ad.

However, in February, Trump said he had not decided whether to support a national 15-week abortion ban that some Republicans have been pushing for, acknowledging that the issue could cost him politically. 

"It probably hurt the Republicans because a lot of Republicans didn't know how to talk about it. But now it's in the states," Trump said during a television interview with Sean Hannity in early March. "A lot of states are taking a vote of their citizens, and votes are coming out both ways, but largely they are coming in with a certain number of weeks, and the number 15 is mentioned. I haven't agreed to a number. I'm going to see." 

Watch the ad here:

Highlighting Democrats' broad support for abortion access, he continues, "I'm running to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again, so women again have a federal guarantee to the right to choose. Donald Trump doesn't trust women. I do," Mr. Biden says.

The campaign says it has a "seven-figure buy" for this ad as part of a $30 million advertising effort in the major battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada. It also believes that the issue of abortion rights gives them a fighting chance to flip Florida, which Trump won in 2020, because women in the state have fewer alternatives. Neighboring Georgia also bans most abortions after roughly six weeks.

Campaign manager Julie Chavez-Rodriguez said, "This new, extreme abortion ban — one that Donald Trump personally paved the way for — will now amount to a ban for the entire Southeast. Women in need of reproductive care throughout the region now face a choice between putting their lives at risk or traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to get care."

Since the nation's highest court overturned Roe, Democrats have found abortion rights to be a winning issue — it helped limit their losses in the 2022 midterm elections, and when it has come up as a ballot measure in states, abortion access has won every time, even in conservative states. Seven states, including those considered to be more conservative like Kansas and Ohio, have moved to protect abortion rights since then. 

Florida's Supreme Court also ruled Monday that a ballot measure known as Amendment 4, which would allow abortion until viability, can be on that state's ballot in November, but it'll require 60% support to pass.

Mr. Biden never says the word "abortion" in the new ad, referring instead to women's "right to choose." A devout Catholic, the president personally opposes abortion but believes women should have access to it. His willingness to use the issue for political advantage drew some criticism from the church over the weekend. On "Face the Nation," Wilton Cardinal Gregory, of the Archdiocese of Washington, referred to the president as a "cafeteria Catholic," suggesting he "picks and chooses dimensions of the faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parts."

However, Right Rev. Marianna Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, defended Mr. Biden on this point, arguing, "It's also possible to be a practitioner of the faith as a public leader and not require everyone that you lead in your country to be guided by all of the precepts of your faith."

A CBS News poll conducted in March showed that a majority of voters believe that the overturning of Roe has been bad for the country.

Shawna Mizelle contributed to this report.

In:
• Roe v. Wade
• Joe Biden
• Donald Trump
• Politics
• Abortion

Weijia Jiang

Weijia Jiang is the senior White House correspondent for CBS News based in Washington, D.C.

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