CHICAGO — President Joe Biden lashed out at Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that abortion should be left up to the states and warned of consequences should Trump win in November.
“No one trusts Donald Trump,” Biden said, pointing to how the former president made a “political deal” with the anti-abortion right.
The president went on to say that his predecessor’s lack of endorsement for a national ban was an illusion. “If they put one on his desk, he said he’d sign it.”
Biden made his remarks during a high-end fundraiser in Chicago featuring about 50 friends and donors, including Bill Daley, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama.
Biden’s campaign was ready to face Trump on abortion soon after he posted his announcement on his social media platform Monday morning. Democrats have been warning for months that abortion will be central to the general election, and the former president’s announcement gave them a fresh reason to talk about the issue.
“Trump’s in trouble and he knows that. Just today he released a video where he’s scrambling on the abortion issue,” Biden said during the Chicago event. “He’s worried voters are going to hold him accountable for overturning Roe v. Wade, and for the cruelty and chaos that it’s created … Voters are going to hold him accountable for the extreme six-week bans.”
Earlier in the day, the Biden campaign also put out a new digital ad spotlighting a Texas woman who suffered a miscarriage and nearly died after doctors in the state refused to perform an abortion.
“Trump did this,” the campaign said in a post to Biden’s account.
The campaign also hosted a press call earlier in the day with Kaitlyn Kash, another Texas woman who was forced to leave the state for an abortion after learning her baby had a severe condition and was unlikely to survive birth.
The Chicago fundraiser was co-hosted by hedge fund manager Michael Sacks and Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts along with their spouses.
Both are big donors to Democrats, and Sacks is leading the host committee of the Democratic National Convention, which will also be held in Chicago. The event was expected to raise $2.5 million for the Biden Action Fund, which feeds into the Biden for President campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Guests also included media executive and Democratic donor Fred Eychaner along with MK Pritzker, wife of Gov. JB Pritzker, who wasn’t able to make it because he was in southern Illinois to view the eclipse.
The guests were seated in an art-filled room in Sacks’ high-rise just off Michigan Avenue as protesters outside raged against the Israel-Hamas war — though their voices couldn’t be heard from inside.
Biden landed in Chicago right after the eclipse and after speaking in Wisconsin on a new plan he announced to help people eliminate student debt.
Across the country, Democrats moved swiftly to capitalize on the opening that Trump provided in a nearly four-and-a-half minute video where the former president took credit for gutting Roe, and argued that individual states should determine when and how harshly to restrict access to abortion.
Prior to the announcement, Trump had come under intense pressure to stake out a clear position after toying for weeks with endorsing a blanket 15-week ban. The former president has privately fretted that the issue is politically toxic for Republicans, especially if they don’t come out in support of exemptions for the life and health of the mother.
Biden, despite showing some discomfort in talking about abortion in the past, has repeatedly vowed to restore Roe v. Wade with legislation if given the chance. He has cast the election as an existential moment for women’s reproductive freedoms. That stance has also offered a sharp contrast with Trump and Republicans, who have struggled for nearly two years to find a tenable consensus for where they stand following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
Adam Cancryn and Elena Schneider contributed to this report.
