Only months into his third presidential campaign, Donald Trump has a conundrum: two of his most notable successes as President have become politically tricky or simply too hot to touch.
Project Warp Speed, a public-private partnership that generated a coronavirus vaccine in record time and was dubbed a “miracle” by Trump, has been criticised by a group of conservatives. Yet the overturning of Roe v. Wade by Trump-appointed Supreme Court judges has become a political Rorschach test for Republicans, with one camp seeing it as a boon and the other dreading it as a handicap.
When Trump launched his presidential campaign, there has been debate regarding how and whether to support vaccines or abortion.
In other words, Trump has applauded the anti-abortion movement and his involvement in selecting conservative judges, but he has also chastised some of its leaders for not doing enough in the 2022 midterm elections. He has also stated the Republicans “poorly handled” the issue, citing lawmakers and candidates who campaigned for no exceptions to abortion restrictions.
Trump’s team believes he can balance praising his role in bringing Roe v. Wade to an end while being on the popular side of public opinion on abortion limits.
“Especially in the primary, it’s a very good talking point for the president. “He’s got a fantastic track record, and he’s in good shape moving into the primary and general election,” said Republican pollster John McLaughlin, who advises Trump. “His position has remained consistent since he ran for office and since he has been in office.”
Yet, managing just two accomplishments from his presidency could be difficult to manage over the duration of a prospective primary and general election run. Trump has begun to take steps to navigate that political landscape.
According to a tape of the call provided with AWN, during the Council for National Policy meeting last weekend at Trump Doral in Miami, he called in to compliment the group’s work advancing conservative causes and to tout his anti-abortion legacy. The request comes amid allegations that evangelicals and pro-life activists are keeping their options open ahead of the GOP primary in 2024.
“We named 300 judges. As you know, we appointed the three Supreme Court justices who established your entire right to life, and everyone had been fighting to obtain this for many, many years, for many, many decades, and we were able to get it done. And we’re very proud of it, and it was a fantastic tribute to many of the folks in the room who worked so hard with us,” Trump added during the five-minute call. “But, it was the entire pro-life movement. They claim that I am the most pro-life president in American history.”
A Trump campaign spokeswoman, Steve Cheung, characterised the former president’s record on “nominating pro-life federal judges and Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade” “unrivalled.” “There has been no bigger advocate for the [anti-abortion] cause,” he said of his boss.
Trump is hardly the only Republican who is concerned about vaccines and abortion.
Nikki Haley, his lone formal competitor in the race, disregarded the latter topic in her launch address but was confronted about it later in interviews. Haley, who has stated that she is “pro-life” because of her experiences as a mother and as governor of South Carolina, signed a law prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks, said she would not support a “full-fledged federal ban” on abortion, but would not specify what she would support now, only saying that there should be “consensus” on when abortion should be prohibited.
The dilemma for both Haley and Trump is that any abortion policy position that performs well in a primary may cause complications in a general election. According to a recent Ipsos poll, while only 35% of Republicans disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision is widely unpopular among Americans, with a majority – 56% — indicating they do not favour the decision.
Republicans may reward Trump for appointing conservatives to the Supreme Court. But, Erick Erickson, a conservative radio personality who will not be endorsing any contender in the Republican primaries, believes the former president has a different “vulnerability” on the subject: “that it is no longer an issue.”
“The conservative people don’t need Donald Trump anymore to put conservatives on the court, he done it. “If anything, after Dobbs, he’s kind of harmed himself among social conservatives by coming out and saying maybe it wasn’t such a good idea,” Erickson said.
Trump’s allies say the more difficult problem will be navigating his participation in the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump has privately expressed delight in the historic attempts to develop a vaccine. Yet he is also well aware that the far-right has turned vaccinations, particularly mandates, into a poisonous subject. He was booed after telling the crowd he had had a booster shot.
Cheung described Operation Warp Speed as a “once-in-a-lifetime programme that provided people with the choice of using medicines if they so desired.” However, he emphasised that Trump “fought against any attempt to federalize the pandemic response by maintaining every state’s authority to ultimately decide what is best for their people due to the specific circumstances each state faced.”
Since commencing his campaign, Trump has blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for attempting to “rewrite history” with his coronavirus reaction. Trump’s team has amassed a library of video spots depicting DeSantis as a supporter of the Covid vaccination, despite his popularity with the anti-vaccine right. In the video, DeSantis personally greets a FedEx truck carrying the first shipment of Pfizer vaccines to arrive in Florida.
One source close to the campaign recommended making former Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner the faces of Operation Warp Speed, citing their participation in the vaccine’s development. Nevertheless, how effective such lines of attack would be as time passes after the epidemic is unknown.
“I don’t see how many Republicans are going to hold it against anyone for promoting the vaccine back in 2020, whether it was Trump, DeSantis, or anyone,” said Matt Wolking, a former Trump campaign official and Republican strategist. “The genuine diehard anti-vaccine [movement is] found on the right and the left and it’s been that way for decades. As a result, I believe most Republicans will continue to fight for personal choice rather than mandates.”
Yet, suspicion of the Covid-19 vaccine — not just the mandates — has been a key focus of far-right broadcasts, notably Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, which frequently interviews critics. Vaccines and vaccine requirements, according to Bannon, a former Trump strategist, are a “big problem” for Republican voters and Trump’s supporters. He has urged Trump against using his position to promote vaccine development.
Yet, McLaughlin believes Trump’s handling of the vaccination poses no risk. Some conservative voters may be put off by it. The more significant factor, he suggested, was that the topic itself was no longer as enthralling as it once was.
“I believe people have progressed,” McLaughlin stated. “I believe people are looking at more urgent matters. When you talk to the typical citizen, you’ll find that they’re struggling to buy food or gas.”
