Tucson, Arizona
CNN
—
Vice President Kamala Harris placed the blame squarely on Donald Trump on Friday as she launched an offensive on abortion rights in Arizona and across the country.
Following a ruling this week by the Arizona Supreme Court banning abortions in almost all cases, Harris traveled to Arizona to mobilize voters who view the November election as a referendum on women’s rights, one of the key themes of the Biden campaign in the upcoming elections. The vice president has become a key voice for the abortion rights campaign and quickly announced a trip to Tucson after Tuesday’s ruling.
The decision, which reinstated a 160-year-old law banning all abortions except in cases where “it is necessary to save” the life of a pregnant woman, “demonstrated once and for all that overturning Roe deer was just the first act in a broader strategy” to restrict access to abortion in the United States, Harris said. The decision, she said, marks an “inflection point” in the fight for abortion rights.
“And we all need to understand who is to blame,” she said. “Former President Donald Trump did this.”
The vice president’s remarks came moments after Trump held a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort with House Speaker Mike Johnson, during which the former president bragged about having “broken Roe v. Wade” and said state control of abortion bans “works the way it’s supposed to.”
In Tucson, Harris laid out the issues of the upcoming election in blunt terms: “This fight is about freedom. »
Harris has crisscrossed the country on her reproductive rights tour since January, arguing that abortion rights were at stake with the election results. Last month, Harris visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota, becoming the first sitting vice president or president to visit an abortion provider.
Calling the overturning of Roe in 2022 a “seismic event,” Harris described Arizona’s ban as “one of the greatest aftershocks.”
Democrats seized on abortion before November, seeing it as a major policy issue that could inspire moderate voters — particularly women — to mobilize en masse against Trump by directly linking the abortion ban to him.
Biden and Harris repeatedly campaigned on Trump’s boast of creating the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade — which had protected the right to abortion at the federal level for nearly half a century — in 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
A second Trump term, Harris said, would result in “more bans, more suffering and less freedom.”
“Just like he did in Arizona, he basically wants to take America back to the 1800s,” Harris said. “But,” she added, “we are not going to allow that to happen.”
“We’re not going back,” she said.
The Biden campaign is seeking to galvanize momentum in battleground Arizona following a Tuesday decision, launching a seven-figure ad buy on the issue as it argues Republicans are “in gap “.
In a new 30-second ad, “Power Back,” President Joe Biden blames his predecessor. The campaign will spend seven figures on this ad and another ad featured earlier this week with the story of a woman affected by Texas’ abortion ban.
Team Harris has focused on reproductive rights as an issue they believe the vice president is uniquely positioned to lead on. The issue has been at the heart of the vice-president’s concerns since 2021, when she organized a roundtable on reproductive rights.
In the United States, about half of registered voters believe this year’s elections will have a “major impact” on access to abortion, and about one in eight voters say abortion is the most important issue who motivates his vote, according to a KFF investigation.
The issue mobilized moderate and liberal voters during the midterm elections, leading to Democratic victories at the polls across the country.
“This is going to be a major issue,” a Democratic strategist told CNN, saying the Arizona court’s ruling serves as another data point to bolster the party’s argument. “This offers an important data point to counter Republican arguments that we are the extremists.”
The Biden campaign repeatedly strives to send the message that Trump “is responsible for the current state of reproductive freedom in Arizona.” As Trump works to thread a political needle on this issue, the campaign will continue to tie him directly to policies.
Arizona Senate, Trump and GOP candidate Kari Lake released statements opposing the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision. And Trump said Wednesday that he would not sign a national law banning abortion if he became president — although his position on abortion has been unclear for decades.
Harris said Friday that she doubted Trump’s sincerity after he claimed at Mar-a-Lago that he would not sign a national law banning abortion if he was re-elected in November.
“Enough with the gaslighting,” she said.
This headline and story were updated with additional developments Friday.
News Source : www.cnn.com
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