Trump Is ‘Spooked’ About Abortion Issue on Florida Ballot, Adopting ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Strategy: Report

Former President Donald Trump is “spooked” about the abortion rights constitutional amendment that will be on Florida’s ballot in November, reports The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo — referring to the issue as the “A-word” and adopting a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy regarding questions on the topic.

On August 8, Trump held a presser at his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and was asked by a reporter about how he intended to vote on the ballot initiative commonly referred to as Amendment 4, which would amend Florida’s Constitution to restrict lawmakers from banning abortions before viability. The Florida Supreme Court issued a ruling in April allowing the measure to be on the November ballots.

“No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider,” the proposed amendment states, which was put forward by abortion rights advocates in response to a 15-week, and then 6-week ban, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into law.

The ex-president dodged the reporter’s question, only saying that he would “announce” how he planned to vote on Amendment 4 at “a press conference on that at some point in the near future.”

Trump has previously called Florida’s 6-week ban “ too harsh ,” and just a few days ago posted on social media that if he is re-elected, his administration “ will be great for women and their reproductive rights.”

Caputo, a longtime Florida-based reporter with previous stints at The Miami Herald and Politico, wrote a column Tuesday that noted Trump’s comments at that presser were now “[t]wenty days ago,” and “a number of evangelical leaders and advisers think he should just shut up about it.”

The issue of abortion “continues to be a hornet’s nest” for Trump, wrote Caputo, as the president who appointed the Supreme Court Justices responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade — but who has “also pledged to veto any new abortion restrictions, vowed not to restrict access to abortion pills if re-elected, and his campaign now won’t say if he would veto a federal bill protecting abortion rights.”

Trump’s inner circle are viewing Amendment 4 as “an unwelcome trap,” especially in light of how the issue contributed to Republican losses in the 2022 midterms and the obvious hope by Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign to capitalize on the issue in November. Those GOP midterm losses “spooked Trump so badly he began privately referring to abortion as ‘the A-word,'” wrote Caputo.

CNN anchor Erin Burnett interviewed Caputo Tuesday evening about his reporting, first playing the video clip of Trump’s August 8 remarks.

“Trump is a Florida resident,” Burnett said. “He has not said how he will vote, but he does promise to address it…he makes it clear that voters may never know how Trump feels about the abortion ban.”

By answering the reporter’s question with a “I’ll let you know soon” answer, said Burnett, showed Trump was “struggling” on this issue.

Part of the push for Trump to take this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, said Caputo, was coming from his evangelical supporters who just want him to win the election, because they liked his position better than the Democrats’ views, and talking about abortion was not a “winning” issue for Trump.

Burnett then played several video clips of Trump over the years “flip-flopping” on abortion, saying he was “very pro-choice” and later calling himself the “most pro-life president in history.”

For evangelical Trump supporters, Caputo replied, they “by and large” feel like they “know where he stands,” and understood he was “trying his best just to avoid this.”

As far as how well that was working for him, Caputo said it was “so far, so sort of good,” and really it was “just an issue” that Trump “doesn’t want to talk about.”

Watch the clip above via CNN .