After a week of making contradictory statements about whether American women should be punished for having abortions if the procedure were outlawed, Donald Trump ended up back where he started.
Right Wing Watch on Tuesday flagged an interview Trump did over the weekend with conservative radio host Joe Pags, in which Trump said he “didn’t see any big deal” with his remarks.
“A lot of people thought my answer was excellent, by the way,” the GOP frontrunner said. “There were a lot of people who thought that was a very good answer.”
Trump’s original “some form of punishment” comments, made Wednesday during a MSNBC town hall, outraged both abortion rights activists and abortion opponents. They also prompted a multi-day scramble by Trump and his staffers to repair the damage.
The campaign issued two statements saying that abortion providers, not women, should be punished for doing the procedure, in a rare admission of a mistake from the notoriously unapologetic campaign.
Trump was then caught in a break-neck pivot again on Friday after a preview of his “Face The Nation” interview, in which he said abortion laws “are set” and should not be changed, aired. Shortly after the segment went live, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks clarified that Trump meant that the laws were set only until he ascends to the White House.
In his interview with Pags, Trump was back on the offensive, noting anecdotally that he “heard people defending” his punishment answer.
Pags accused MSNBC host Chris Matthews of trying to trap Trump into an uncomfortable answer by asking a “loaded and stupid and hypothetical” question.
Trump agreed, calling Matthews’ line of questioning “disgraceful.”
Listen to the interview excerpt below via Right Wing Watch:
