On Wednesday night, cable news broadcast a tale of two contests. On CNN, two Republicans spent the better part of two hours exchanging pejoratives, attacking each others’ motivations and political records, and accusing each other of being dishonest in general and fake conservatives in particular. On Fox News, the other Republican was uplifting, on message, and appealing to the center while defending the party platform.
Donald Trump debuted a throwback to the 2020 election, but not to his whiny, negative, and grievance-laden death march to Jan. 6. Rather, the former president pivoted to the general election by borrowing the 2020 blueprint of his successor. After months of effectively campaigning from the basement (in this case, the manor of Mar-A-Lago) and cordoning his most unhinged umbrages to the obscurity of Truth Social, Trump focused on the future and, not dishonestly, positioned his own candidacy as the return to normal from the extremism and chaos of the Biden presidency.
“I’m not going to have time for retribution,” Trump said in a welcome pivot from past remarks. “I’m going to make this country so successful again, I’m not going to have time for retribution.”
While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unfairly claimed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley “may even be more liberal than Gavin Newsom,” Trump effectively made the case that it’s the Democrats, not the GOP, that are the extremists, specifically while addressing the issue that has cost Republicans the greatest favor at the ballot box.
“Remember this: They’re the radicals. We’re not the radicals, because they’ll kill a baby,” Trump said, discussing Democratic proposals like the so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act,” which legalizes abortion up until the point of birth. “Nobody wants to see that happening after a certain period of time, nobody. They are the radicals because they are willing to kill the baby in eight months, nine months, or even after birth. If you remember, the former governor of Virginia where he said, you kill the baby after the ninth month or even after you’ve set the baby aside and you have a conversation with the mother. And if the conversation, can you image — but these are the radicals. We are not the radicals. We are not the radicals. But we are living in a time when there has to be a little bit of a concession, one way or another.”
Trump, who correctly took credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion issue back to the states, correctly emphasized his pro-life compromises, including a thinly veiled swipe at state six-week abortion bans (“a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks”) and his iron law of exceptions.
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“Now, I happen to be for the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan, with the life of the mother, rape, incest,” Trump said. “I just have to be there, I feel. I think probably 78% or so, a poll, about 78%. It was Ronald Reagan. He was for it. I was for it. But I will say this: you have to win elections. Otherwise you’re going to be back where you were, and you can’t let that ever happen again. You’ve got to win elections.”
Trump should not have to say this, but as evidenced by the dismal discourse over Kate Cox, the Texas woman barred from a (likely) life-saving abortion when she started leaking amniotic fluid while 20 weeks pregnant with a Trisomy 15 baby, apparently it needs to be said. While other Republicans race to brand the party as even more extreme than Democrats, Donald Trump — of all people on the planet! — decided to promulgate a positive and conciliatory message designed for a general election.