Sen. Tina Smith: ‘American Women Are Not Going to be Conned’ by Trump on Abortion

Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that American women were “not going to be conned” by former President Donald Trump’s states’ rights position on abortion.

Partial transcript as follows:

SMITH: Well, you know, first of all, I just want to say, George, that American women are not going to be conned by Donald Trump and his comments about abortion. We know that he is the one who is responsible for what’s going on in Arizona and all over the country. So, that’s the bottom line, I think, as we think about the election coming up.

With regard to the Comstock Act, OK, so this is a 150-year-old law that has been long relegated to the dust bin of history, and yet we can see Trump judges, and even the United States Supreme Court, raising this up as a reason why people shouldn’t be able to get medication abortion through the mail. So, we have to pay attention to this and make sure that we are doing everything that we can to protect people’s rights to make their own decisions about their own bodies and their own lives.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is there anything more that President Biden could be doing now with executive action to protect those rights?

SMITH: I’m really grateful that the president has done everything that he possibly can to protect people’s rights. And he is fighting right now to make sure that the FDA’s authority to make decisions about whether medications like Mifepristone are — that their decision-making is what rules and not the decision of some Trump judge from Texas, which is what’s happening before the Supreme Court right now.

So I think that they’re doing everything that they can. What we need to do is to win these elections so that we can put the protections of Roe in law.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say that the American people will not be conned by Donald Trump, but his position now is relatively clear, isn’t it, saying this should be a state by state issue?

SMITH: Well, so think about what that means exactly. First of all, he said that he is the person who is proudly responsible for overturning Roe. That is what has caused all of this chaos and cruelty to the one in three American women who live in states where abortion is now basically banned.

The other thing he said just a couple of days ago is that these state bans are working the way they should. So ask a woman in Arizona or Texas whether she thinks this is working for her. Because, for her, this isn’t a political discussion. This is about her personal life and her decisions that she can make for herself about her own life.

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN