The Associated Press ran an article Wednesday evening under the headline: “Debate: Conservatives unhappy with Trump’s abortion answer.” In it, the AP claimed that conservatives were disappointed that Trump failed to say directly whether “he wants Roe v. Wade overturned.”
Trump answered, in fact, that Roe v. Wade would be overturned “automatically” if he were given the opportunity to appoint conservative justices. But that was too indirect for “some conservatives,” the AP reported.
Which conservatives, exactly? Two, it turns out.
The first, it turns out, is Evan McMullin, who is running against Trump, hoping to play the spoiler by taking Utah. And the second is RedState’s Erick Erickson, who declared in February: “I Will Not Vote for Donald Trump. Ever.” That, of course, was omitted from the AP’s report, which was widely reprinted across local news outlets and which tends to suggest that Trump did so poorly in the debate that he lost his own core base of conservative voters.
The reality is quite different.
Pro-life conservatives were very happy with Trump’s performance in the debate, especially his attack on partial-birth abortion, which Hillary Clinton struggled to defend.
Talk show host Laura Ingraham and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — both Trump supporters — were impressed. National Right to Life also joined in by slamming Clinton’s answers.
Lifesitenews.com, a pro-life news outlet, praised Trump’s answer in a story headlined “Trump blasts Hillary on abortion: she thinks it’s okay to ‘rip the baby out of the womb’ up to birth.”
Others also praised Trump for declaring in the debate that he is pro-life and would appoint pro-life judges.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.