President Biden’s 2024 campaign criticized media coverage of former President Donald Trump’s stance on abortion, calling for greater accuracy in reporting during a press call this week.
During the Biden-Harris 2024 press call addressing Trump’s position on abortion, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, deputy communications director Brooke Goren, and Kaitlyn Kash gathered on Zoom to respond to Trump’s recent announcement.
“Trump kept his word to overturn Roe in his last term, and he will not rest until he has banned abortion across the entire country. Period,” Goren stated in her opening remarks.
The campaign team expressed frustration with media headlines that they believed misrepresented Trump’s stance on abortion. Goren cited specific articles from The Associated Press, The Washington Post, and CNN as examples.
Earlier that day, Trump reaffirmed his support for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and emphasized his belief that states should determine their own abortion laws, with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother.
“The states will determine by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land – in this case, the law of the state,” Trump explained in a video posted to Truth Social. “Many states will be different. Many states will have a different number of weeks…at the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.”
The Biden-Harris campaign took issue with headlines that portrayed Trump as declining to endorse a national abortion ban or suggesting he would leave the decision solely to the states.
Goren called out a specific headline from USA Today as “particularly egregiously false,” which originally stated, “‘The will of the people’: Trump opposes national abortion ban; says states should decide.”
“Trump didn’t decline anything and all he did was take credit again for the nightmare he created. That’s the news that’s important here,” Goren emphasized.
After the press call, USA Today updated its headline to more accurately reflect Trump’s statements, stating, “Donald Trump says states should decide abortion policy, avoids talk of a national ban.”
In response to the headline change, USA Today explained that updating headlines for breaking news is routine to ensure accuracy.
President Biden also addressed the topic at a fundraiser in Chicago, expressing distrust in Trump and suggesting that Trump would sign a national abortion ban if presented with one.
