Donald Trump said he would vote against an amendment in his home state of Florida that would enshrine abortion rights
| Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Friday (August 30, 2024) he would vote against an amendment in his home state of Florida that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution and overturn a current six-week abortion ban.

Mr. Trump made the comments to Fox News, a day after he caused confusion when he seemed to suggest in an interview with NBC News that he would vote in favour of the amendment.

The amendment is strongly opposed by the anti-abortion groups that have backed his campaign in the November 5, 2024 election against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks,” Mr. Trump said, adding he also believed the proposed amendment was too permissive.

“So I’ll be voting no for that reason,” said Mr. Trump, who has also indicated the matter should be decided by individual states.

Ms. Harris said the former president brags about his role in overturning the constitutional protection for abortion, adding he will vote to uphold a ban “so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant.”

“When I’m president and Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, I will proudly sign it into law. The choice in this election is clear,” she said in a statement.

Abortion has become a key issue ahead of the election with pro-abortion rights contributions increasing in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

IVF fertility treatments

IVF fertility treatments have also been pushed into the spotlight since an Alabama court ruled earlier this year that frozen embryos were people. The state’s governor later signed a law aimed at protecting the treatment.

Mr. Trump, who Democrats have painted as a threat to women’s rights, said on Thursday (August 29, 2024) that, if elected, he would require government or insurance companies to pay for IVF fertility treatments.

However, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, on Friday (August 30, 2024) dismissed that offer as unbelievable.

Mr. Walz told guests at a campaign fundraiser in the Washington suburb of Bethesda that he and his wife, Gwen, briefly contemplated changing their talking points on the issue, given Mr. Trump’s comments, but changed their minds.

“Look, women don’t trust them. They don’t trust women, so why the hell would women trust them? No one’s believing that,” Mr. Walz told about 150 campaign contributors.

Gwen Walz did not mention Mr. Trump’s latest comments in her introduction of her husband, but said the overall issue of fertility treatments was very personal for her family, having used them to conceive their two children, Hope and Gus.

“If Trump had his way, I would never have become a mom,” Gwen Walz said. “That’s a decision that he was trying to make for me and for other women, and if Vance had his way, well, that would make me a second class.”

The comment on Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance appeared to reference his 2021 comment about Democrats without biological children as “childless cat women.”

Opinion polls show Mr. Trump has lost ground with women voters since Ms. Harris became the Democratic candidate in the November 5 election. Ms. Harris led Mr. Trump by 49% to 36%, or 13% points, among women voters in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday (August 29, 2024) compared to her 9-point lead in polls conducted in July.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump, holding his first campaign rally Saturday since surviving an assassination attempt, dismissed concerns that he is a threat to democracy, triumphantly telling a cheering crowd: “Last week I took a bullet for democracy.”

“I’m not an extremist at all,” he continued at the rally in swing state of Michigan, dismissing his reported links to Project 2025, a radical shadow manifesto led by figures close to him that has been characterised by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.

ALSO READ: How the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump unfolded

And he mocked the rival Democratic Party, roiled by unprecedented pressure for President Joe Biden to abandon the White House race amid concerns over his age and fitness to serve, if reelected, until 2029.

“They have no idea who their candidate is… This guy goes and he gets the votes, and now they want to take it away. That’s democracy,” Mr. Trump told the 12,000-strong crowd of passionate supporters.

Even as he veered into his typical, rambling campaign speech, the rally represented a moment remarkable by any measure, with Mr. Trump back on stage exactly one week since a gunman tried to kill him.

The Republican presidential nominee appeared wearing a new, smaller, flesh-coloured bandage over his right ear, bloodied in the attack by a 20-year-old gunman at a rally in Pennsylvania that killed one bystander.

Security was reportedly tight inside the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, amid questions over Secret Service lapses at the Pennsylvania rally — though there were few visible signs of any greater law enforcement presence.

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden loyalists continued to defend the embattled president as the drumbeat of calls for him to abandon his campaign grows louder.

The 81-year-old and his team have remained publicly adamant that he is staying in the race, though some reports suggest discussions have begun in his inner circle about how exactly he might step aside.

Biden’s ‘big decision’

There has been massive speculation over who could replace him. As vice president, Ms. Harris appears best positioned to do so.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who sought the party’s presidential nod in 2020, gave Ms. Harris a boost Saturday without turning her back on the president.

“Joe Biden is our nominee,” she said on MSNBC. “He has a really big decision to make.

“But what gives me a lot of hope right now is that if President Biden decides to step back, we have Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ready to step up, to unite the party, to take on Donald Trump, and to win in November.”

Some Democrats, however, fear that such a late switch could trigger chaos, dooming the party at the polls.

Team Trump, for its part, is effervescent after an exceptional streak of luck — from the failed assassination bid to favorable court rulings and Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month.

“I had God on my side,” he told the Republican National Convention Thursday, at which he demonstrated his absolute control over the party, firing supporters up to a rare pitch.

Saturday was Mr. Trump’s debut campaign appearance with running mate J.D. Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio who at age 39 could help win over critical swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Ahead of Mr. Trump’s speech, Mr. Vance warmed up the crowd, taking a swipe at Ms. Harris.

“I did serve in the United States Marine Corps and build a business. What the hell have you done, other than collect a check?” he said of the former U.S. senator and California attorney general.

Mr. Trump’s supporters had begun lining up in their dozens in Grand Rapids on Friday, nearly a full day before the rally began.

Edward Young, 64, preparing for his 81st Trump rally, was wearing a T-shirt showing the already iconic photo of Mr. Trump pumping his fist immediately after being shot.

“They have turned him into a martyr and left him alive,” he said. “Now he’s more powerful than ever.”