Donald Trump released a video Monday proclaiming a hodgepodge of undercooked positions on abortion. Rachel Maddow broke down the traditional media’s failure to convey Trump’s cowardice, incoherence, and dishonesty.
She recited a number of muted headlines from major newspapers and then explained what’s wrong with them.
Maddow:
Today, Donald Trump did put out a video statement in which he did indeed say that restrictions on abortions are things that should be decided by individual states. Looking at these headlines, you might get the impression that that was somehow Trump moderating his position on abortion.
These headlines are exactly what Donald Trump wanted after delivering his remarks on abortion today. Sadly, that is exactly what he got. Even though the actual content of Donald Trump’s remarks today indicated something very different than what was in those headlines.
The substantive, new, and important thing articulated by Donald Trump today was that he has now abandoned any criticism he once had for the strictest abortion bans that are now in effect and under consideration.
And I love me some New York Times, and I love The Washington Post, and I love Reuters, and I love The Guardian, and I love The Wall Street Journal. I revere the free and fair press, and I could not do 98% of what I do without reporting from institutions like these to give us the facts on which we base everything that we do in the news business.
But the headline spin today from multiple excellent news agencies about what Trump did was just absolutely at odds with the importance of what he said.
I mean, Florida has a total ban on abortion, a six-week ban on abortion, that is set to go into effect on May 1st. Trump, until now, was critical of strict abortion bans like Florida’s. He used to call abortion bans like that too severe. He called the Florida abortion ban a, quote, terrible mistake.
Today, Trump eliminated that from his vocabulary. He voiced no concern whatsoever with Florida’s abortion ban or any other abortion restriction any state might want to impose. Trump used to be a critic of six-week bans. Now he’s apparently fine with them. Trump was also silent on the issue of a national abortion ban, which his own party has been relentlessly pushing. A national ban is something he himself reportedly said he supports as recently as a few weeks ago.
Trump today also, for what it’s worth, falsely accused Democrats of executing children. That’s what he said Democrats’ abortion policies are—it’s to execute children. Which has a nice QAnon flavor to it, in addition to being completely, completely false.
And so perhaps a more accurate headline about Trump’s remarks today might have been something like, you know, “Channeling QAnon conspiracy theory, Donald Trump falsely accuses Democrats of executing children.” Or, “Trump abandons previous criticism of strictest state abortion bans. Trump avoids mention of Republican proposals for national restrictions.” I mean— Or maybe try something like this: “Donald Trump also said today that he is, quote, proudly the person responsible for ending the constitutional right to an abortion.” Proudly the person responsible for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
He did explicitly say that today. And that would have made for a great headline: Trump takes personal credit for ending the constitutional right to abortion in America. Abandons criticism of most draconian abortion bans.
Right? Short, snappy, accurate, rightfully spotlighting the issue that Roe versus Wade is gone, and it’s because of him.
That’s not how it got covered today, which I’m sure Trump is delighted with.
Despite the traditional media’s failure to hold him to account, Trump’s clumsy attempt to appease the GOP’s rabid anti-abortion base was a complete failure—not simply because he is an oaf, but because his party’s extremist positions on abortion are so unpopular it’s hard for him to figure out the right lie to tell.
Kerry and Markos talk about Florida, its strict abortion ban, and Democratic challengers’ chances in the Sunshine State.