The former President blinked at adopting the path of totality on abortion.
The eclipse as seen in Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday. |
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Donald Trump blinked at adopting the path of totality on abortion. Instead, the ex-President adopted a compromise position on the issue that cleaves American politics — seeking to insulate himself from one of the Democratic Party's most potent arguments in November's election. Trump said that it should be up to the states to decide whether abortion is legal — a stance in line with the conservative Supreme Court's majority that he built and that overturned the nationwide constitutional right to the procedure in 2022. In theory, this is the least politically damaging position that Trump could adopt, given that no one is going to forget he built the most right-wing majority in the Supreme Court's history in the first place. In a video on Monday, the presumptive Republican nominee said he was "proudly the person responsible" for overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. But his new position, which comes after months of waffling and attacks by President Joe Biden's campaign, falls well short of the aspirations of social conservative voters who want Congress to ban the procedure nationwide. Trump's own former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance, called Trump's dodge a "slap in the face" to millions of anti-abortion Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020. Trump is politically astute. He understands a more absolutist position on abortion would not fly in a general election. And he's making a classic post-primary race pivot to try to win over more moderate general election voters. He's also wagering that far right conservatives, whom he needs to show up in heavy numbers in November, have nowhere else to go. And he has something of a pass — he'll always be the President who promised to construct a Supreme Court majority from right-wing judges who opposed abortion. Trump may not have improved his general election position much though. Biden is going to blame him for the chaos that has followed the overturning of Roe vs. Wade: Republican legislatures and campaigners have been ripping up abortion rights all over the country. Florida, Trump's home state, is about to implement a law banning abortion after six weeks following conception – at a point when many women don't even know they are pregnant. Conservative courts have taken up the issue leading to a patchwork of new rules and controversies. IVF fertility treatments were halted in Alabama, for instance. There are new dramas raging about the availability of the abortion pill and contraception. Biden said on Monday that Trump was "more than anyone in America – responsible for creating the cruelty and the chaos that has enveloped" the country over abortion. And he predicted that if a Republican Congress passed a total ban on abortion, Trump would sign it. Democrats want the election to be all about abortion, believing it's the key to high turnout among female, moderate and young voters. Trump's statement on Monday was his clearest attempt yet to prevent that happening. |
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CIA Director Bill Burns presented a new proposal to try to broker a deal to bring about a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the release of the Israeli hostages. Palestinians forced to flee Khan Younis by Israel's military offensive have begun returning in small numbers to the southern Gaza city in ruins. And Brazil's attorney general has called for social media platforms in the country to be regulated after Elon Musk threatened to disobey a court order banning certain accounts on X. Meanwhile in North America millions of people in Mexico, the US and Canada experienced a total solar eclipse. A campaign official for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in New York says her "number one priority" is preventing a Biden victory. And Tesla has settled with an Apple engineer's family, who said Autopilot caused his fatal crash. |
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Yellen makes a meal of it |
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (center) and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns (left) at dinner with China's Vice Premier He Lifeng in Guangzhou on April 5. |
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and then-President Richard Nixon at a banquet in Shanghai on February 28, 1972. |
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Chopstick diplomacy is back. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's weekend trip to China broached some of the deep divides between two superpowers and underscored the open resentment China harbors in its belief that Washington is trying to thwart its rightful power and prestige. But Yellen did make some friends, through her love for Chinese food, and her expertise at wielding chopsticks that was captured on camera and went viral on social media. Our friends at the Meanwhile in China newsletter reported that Yellen's trip to a Cantonese restaurant in the southern city of Guangzhou included classic dim sum fare including shrimp dumplings, egg tarts and pan-fried turnip cakes, then roasted goose, sweet and sour pork and stir-fried beef noodles. "(I) noticed Yellen uses chopsticks quite well," a CCTV reporter said in a social media post -- but made sure the praise only went so far. "As a US official, Yellen needs to know more about China than just its food. Only by understanding China better, can she correct the US worldview and its views of China and China-US relations." This all reminded us of one of our favorite moments in the long and complicated annals of US-China relations. President Richard Nixon — not one of the most avant-garde US political figures — nevertheless made the smart move of learning how to use chopsticks before he went to China in 1972. When he was pictured with then-Premier Zhou Enlai, proficiently taking a bite, he scored a diplomatic triumph. |
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Thanks for reading. On Tuesday, the Bidens welcome the Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida & Mrs. Yuko Kishida to the White House. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom hosts a two-day meeting of his Nordic and Baltic counterparts in Visby, Sweden. |
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