Once pro-choice, the leading Republican presidential candidate now thinks that women who terminate pregnancies should be punished. Donald Trump’s going to ban it, but is not sure yet just what he’s going to have done to women who disobey him. But he’s thinking about it.
[Chris] Matthews then pressed him for a straight answer on what a ban on abortion would entail.
“Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump answered.
The former reality television star later added that “there has to be some form of punishment,” for women who get abortions after a ban is implemented, acknowledging the punishment would “have to be determined.”
He’s unsure about how racist to be, but in no two minds at all about the women. Expect to hear a lot more sexist nastiness as the campaign goes on.
Update: He’s changed his mind.
New @realDonaldTrump statement completely flips on earlier comments that women should be punished for abortions: pic.twitter.com/Mu1GBu2nzo
— Cameron Joseph (@cam_joseph) March 30, 2016
There’s something amazing about how Trump just blurts out the right-wing positions he’s discerned without realizing some of that stuff is supposed to stay implicit. He’s like an AI chatbot who boils down his audience to its most vulgar principles, leaving that audience half-delighted and half-terrified at how completely exposed they are by his performance.