Former President Trump said Sunday that a national abortion ban is “off the table,” but he left the door open on the conversation by saying “we’ll see what happens.”
“Let me just tell you, I think that it’s something that’s off the table now, because I did something that everybody has wanted to do, I was able to get it back to the states,” Trump said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The former president said overturning Roe v. Wade was something “every Democrat and Republican wanted.”
“Everybody wanted it, and I did it,” he said. “Now, we’ll see what happens. I will say this, that issue has been, in my opinion, largely defused.”
Trump’s comments come a week after his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, went on the show and said she was in favor of abortion rights.
Abortion has been a difficult issue for Republicans, including for Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) on the campaign trail, as Democrats hammer them on the topic. Trump has said abortion policy should be left up to the states, while Democrats point to the number of states implementing strict abortion bans.
The former president said earlier this month that he would veto a federal abortion ban if it came across his desk in the White House.
But he also applauded the work of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade, taking credit for appointing them.
“For 52 years they’ve been fighting. Every legal scholar said it shouldn’t be in the federal government, it should be in the states and a vote of the people, let the people vote,” Trump said. “And I was able to do that because of six very brave and very smart [justices].”
Trump said it’s “very important” to have exceptions on abortion, including the life of the mother, rape and incest.