Politics
Trump’s Changing Messages on Abortion, in 660 Quotes
When he first ran for president, Donald J. Trump talked repeatedly about his opposition to abortion. “I’m pro-life, and I was originally pro-choice,” he said in 2016. Another time that year, he said, “I am pro-life, and I will be appointing pro-life judges.” In total in 2016, according to a New York Times analysis, he described himself as “pro-life” 36 times:
.
In this campaign, though, he hardly ever uses the term. This year, he has described himself as “pro-life” once:
.
During his re-election campaign in 2020, Mr. Trump often spoke of his support for a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In total, before the Supreme Court decision that ended the national right to abortion in 2022, he expressed his support for a federal ban 50 times:
.
Since the court’s decision, Dobbs v. Jackson, which allowed individual states to ban abortion, he has expressed support for a federal ban only once
, saying, “It could be a state ban, it could be a federal ban.”
More often, he has said the exact opposite, that he opposes a federal ban. Since the court’s decision, he has said that 11 times:
. “I’m not signing a ban, and there’s no reason to sign a ban”; “There will not be a federal ban”; “I’m not signing a national abortion bill.”
We looked at all the statements Mr. Trump has made about abortion since he first ran for president, in speeches, interviews and posts online, that were cataloged by Roll Call Factba.se. We categorized 660 of them based on the words he used. The analysis shows how his messaging over the last decade has changed with the political moment — and how this year he has tried to distance himself from the core beliefs of the anti-abortion movement.
The way Donald Trump has talked about abortion changed after the Dobbs decision. Below, a comparison of the themes Mr. Trump mentioned most in his public statements, based on a Times analysis.
Some statements appear in more than one theme.
Trump’s Statements on Abortion Before and After Dobbs
There is no evidence that Mr. Trump’s stance on abortion has changed. As president, he did more to restrict abortion rights in the United States than any other president, including by appointing three of the six Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. As recently as the September debate, he took credit, saying, “I did a great service in doing it.” Anti-abortion groups have laid out a pathway for him to effectively ban abortion nationwide if he is re-elected.
As it became clear that the Dobbs decision was hurting some Republican candidates, however, he changed his messaging, sometimes directly contradicting himself. He said as much in April, when he released a video on Truth Social emphasizing that Republicans needed to talk about abortion in a way that would appeal to voters: “You must follow your heart on this issue. But remember, you must also win elections.”
Mr. Trump’s ambiguous or even contradictory statements can allow voters to hear whichever message they want to hear, political analysts said.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said that Mr. Trump had been consistent in his stance on abortion, and that he had always supported the rights of states to make decisions on abortion rights.
Jason Rapert, founder and president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, which supports a nationwide abortion ban, said, “I think we should remember the Donald Trump of 2016, and what he was saying from his heart, and he made good on those policy decisions.”
Mr. Rapert said he was “extremely disappointed” to hear Mr. Trump say he did not support a federal abortion ban. But he does not necessarily believe him, he said: “I realized that he really is delivering messaging that came from many of the consultants around him.”
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said Mr. Trump was giving mixed messages because he was trying to hold onto the support of evangelical voters while also trying to win back moderates who have turned against him because of his role in overturning Roe.
“It’s a winning strategy with evangelicals — you never hear born-again Christians are defecting; they’re not,” Ms. Lake said. “It’s been a loss with suburban women, with younger women, with the moderate Republican women who now call themselves independents, and he’s been trying to figure out a way to get them back.”
In her polling and focus groups, she said, many voters have never really believed that Mr. Trump opposes abortion. His recent rhetoric “just reinforces that his heart’s not really in it, he doesn’t really believe this,” she said. “But on the other hand, the MAGA party does believe in it, and his political calculations are such that he did Dobbs and he will continue to do more.”
Trump’s evolution
Before he became a national political figure, Mr. Trump had described himself as “very pro-choice,” so in his initial run for president as a Republican, he repeatedly emphasized that he had abandoned that position.
Times Trump described himself as “pro-life,” by quarter
“I am pro-life”
Mr. Trump was courting the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, whose votes he needed. He promised to appoint “pro-life judges” to the Supreme Court. He made abortion restrictions a staple of his 2016 campaign, speaking often about how important the issue was.
Times Trump said abortion is an important issue, by quarterAbortion is an important issue
After he was elected, Mr. Trump kept many of his promises to the anti-abortion movement. He enacted several regulatory policies that limited funding for abortion and organizations that supported it. He appointed three justices to the Supreme Court from a list of candidates pre-approved by the anti-abortion movement.
As he approached his re-election campaign, he supported a bill in Congress that would have banned abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill was a major theme of campaign rallies, and was featured in his 2020 State of the Union address and a speech that year at the March for Life, the anti-abortion movement’s biggest annual event. He was the first sitting president to speak there.
He called on Congress to “defend the dignity of life and to pass legislation prohibiting late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in their mother’s womb.”
Times Trump said he supports federal abortion restrictions, by quarterSupports federal restrictions
After the Dobbs decision overturning the right to abortion in 2022, Mr. Trump often celebrated his role in it: “If you look at what we’ve done with Roe v. Wade, we did something that everyone said couldn’t be done, and we got it done.”
At the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September, he again praised Dobbs, and “the genius and heart and strength” of the Supreme Court justices who supported it.
Later that month, he extolled his record on the issue: “I’ve done an unbelievable job on the abortion question.”
He often said that all Americans or “all legal scholars” supported the court’s decision to overturn Roe, despite polling majorities and numerous legal briefs that opposed it.
During this campaign, though, he has sent mixed messages. At first, he said he would support a Florida measure expanding abortion access, then said he wouldn’t. He said he wouldn’t restrict access to abortion pills, then said he was open to it.
He has not always directly answered questions about his personal views on abortion. Often, he avoids it by embracing the fact that Dobbs allowed states to restrict and ban abortion: “It doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.”
Before Dobbs, he did not say much about believing abortion should be decided by the states. Now, he says it instead of answering questions about new federal policies he might pursue as president.
His party platform also emphasizes that abortion rights are a decision for the states, saying only that the party opposes “late-term abortion.” Then it shifts to other topics, like support for prenatal care, and access to birth control and in vitro fertilization.
He also deflects by saying the Democrats have taken extreme positions: “The radicals are really the Democrats because they’ll kill babies in their eighth and ninth month and they’ll kill babies after birth.” In fact, infanticide is illegal in every state. Arguments about Democratic extremism were also a staple of his 2020 re-election campaign speeches, but he is talking about that even more now.
He has also recently repeated his support for exceptions to abortion bans for women who are victims of rape or incest, or whose lives are threatened by their pregnancies. These statements somewhat conflict with his embrace of state-based approaches to abortion policy, since many states with abortion bans do not have these exceptions.
Melania Trump, the former first lady, published a book this month in which she said she supported abortion rights, a surprise that some political analysts said was a calculated move to appeal to more moderate voters.
For much of this campaign, Mr. Trump declined to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban.
Then, in recent weeks, he changed course again, saying that he would veto a federal ban, in direct opposition to the goals of the anti-abortion movement. He said in an online message earlier this month: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters.”
Otherwise, Mr. Trump is not talking much about how he would handle abortion policy from the executive branch. Regardless of who wins the election, major federal legislation on the topic is unlikely to pass Congress in the next few years.
Instead, he has begun saying abortion is not an important issue: “The country’s falling apart,” he said recently. “We’re going to end up in World War III, and all they can talk about is abortion. That’s all they talk about. And it really no longer pertains because we’ve done something on abortion that nobody thought was possible.”
But the president still has major influence on abortion access nationwide, through regulations and executive actions. In Mr. Trump’s last administration, he cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood for contraceptive services. He appointed numerous federal judges who oppose abortion rights. If elected again, he could also use the Food and Drug Administration or the Justice Department to ban or restrict the mailing of abortion pills, which have contributed to increased abortion access since Dobbs.
“I know he’s steering clear with only days left until the election,” said Mr. Rapert of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, “but clearly the federal government can do more.”
The complete list of Trump’s statements on abortion
Here is a list of Mr. Trump’s statements on abortion since 2015, organized by topic.
Oct. 2016 Breitbart News interview
May 2018
Susan B. Anthony Campaign for Life Gala speech Jan. 2019
March for Life speech
June 2020
Christian Broadcasting Network interview
Oct. 2020
Rally, Pensacola, Fla.
Oct. 2020 Rally, Lititz, Pa.
Sept. 2023
Rally, Dubuque, Iowa Sept. 2024
Rally in Indiana, Pa.
Methodology Transcriptions and related metadata were provided by Roll Call FactBa.se.
The analysis included transcripts from every public appearance by Mr. Trump, including every speech, interview, rally and debate, during his campaigns in 2016, 2020 and 2024 (through Oct. 23) and during his presidency. It includes appearances after he left office and before he started his campaign in late 2023, but some small appearances in this period may have been missed.
Also included in the data set is every public appearance that ran on C-SPAN or was posted on Rumble or YouTube, and every tweet and Truth Social post on Mr. Trump’s accounts, including over 300 deleted posts.
The authors searched this database for mentions of keywords related to abortion, then manually categorized individual quotations. Some statements were included in more than one category.
Abortion is an important issue
new video loaded: Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night
transcript
transcript
Protests Against ICE in Minneapolis Continue Into Friday Night
Hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Minneapolis on Friday night. They stopped at several hotels along the way to blast music, bang drums and play instruments to try to disrupt the sleep of immigration agents who might be staying there. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said there were 29 arrests but that it was mostly a “peaceful protest.”
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The vast majority of people have done this right. We are so deeply appreciative of them. But we have seen a few incidents last night. Those incidents are being reviewed, but we wanted to again give the overarching theme of what we’re seeing, which is peaceful protest. And we wanted to say when that doesn’t happen, of course, there are consequences. We are a safe city. We will not counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos here. We in Minneapolis are going to do this right.
By McKinnon de Kuyper
January 10, 2026
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President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners “in a BIG WAY,” crediting U.S. intervention for the move following last week’s American military operation in the country.
“Venezuela has started the process, in a BIG WAY, of releasing their political prisoners,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you! I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done.”
He added a warning directed at those being released: “I HOPE THEY NEVER FORGET! If they do, it will not be good for them.”
The president’s comments come one week after the United States launched Operation Absolute Resolve, a strike on Venezuela and capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro as well as his wife Cilia Flores, transporting them to the United States to face federal drug trafficking charges.
US WARNS AMERICANS TO LEAVE VENEZUELA IMMEDIATELY AS ARMED MILITIAS SET UP ROADBLOCKS
Government supporters in Venezuela rally in Caracas. (AP Photo)
Following the military operation, Trump said the U.S. intends to temporarily oversee Venezuela’s transition of power, asserting American involvement “until such time as a safe, proper and judicious transition” can take place and warning that U.S. forces stand ready to escalate if necessary.
At least 18 political prisoners were reported freed as of Saturday and there is no comprehensive public list of all expected releases, Reuters reported.
Maduro and Flores were transported to New York after their capture to face charges in U.S. federal court. The Pentagon has said that Operation Absolute Resolve involved more than 150 aircraft and months of planning.
TRUMP ADMIN SAYS MADURO CAPTURE REINFORCES ALIEN ENEMIES ACT REMOVALS
A demonstrator holding a Venezuelan flag sprays graffiti during a march in Mexico City on Santurday. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump has said the U.S. intends to remain actively involved in Venezuela’s security, political transition and reconstruction of its oil infrastructure.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)
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Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and Greg Norman-Diamond contributed to this reporting.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump’s vision of military supremacy.
Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers.
Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles.
“This company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,” Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. “The future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.”
Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron — which lay on its side near Hegseth — and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters in 2020.
Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies that have revitalized Southern California’s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.
Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.
Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described as “a call to action to revitalize America’s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation’s workforce.”
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth’s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.
“Rocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,” Richardson said. “This emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that’s really taking place here.”
Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance.
The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.
Trump also issued an executive order Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.
Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development — touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the “coolest factory floors” he had ever seen.
“I just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,” he said.
Hegseth’s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation’s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro’s capture as an example of the country’s newfound “deterrence in action.” Though Trump’s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.
Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the “Dream Military.”
Hegseth told the workers it would be a “historic investment” that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.
Trump also posted on social media this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons — in a dig at existing prime contractors.
However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.
Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding round last year.
Founder Palmer Luckey told Bloomberg News he supported Trump’s moves to limit executive compensation in the defense sector, saying, “I pay myself $100,000 a year.” However, Luckey has a stake in Anduril, last valued by investors at $30.5 billion.
Peter Beck, the founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab, took a base salary of $575,000 in 2024 but with bonus and stock awards his total compensation reached $20.1 million, according to a securities filing. He also has a stake in the company, which has a market capitalization of about $45 billion.
Beck introduced Hegseth saying he was seeking to “reinvigorate the national industrial base and create a leaner, more effective Department of War, one that goes faster and leans on commercial companies just like ours.”
Rocket Lab boasts that its Electron rocket, which first launched in 2017, is the world’s leading small rocket and the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket behind SpaceX.
It has carried payloads for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, aside from commercial customers.
The company employs 2,500 people across facilities in New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., including in Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi.
Rocket Lab shares closed at $84.84 on Friday, up 2%.
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