Vice President Kamala Harris lambasted Donald Trump on Friday as being responsible for erasing abortion rights in the country, one of her most direct attacks on the former president so far as abortion has taken center stage in the upcoming election.
“We all must understand who is to blame. Former President Donald Trump did this,” Harris said at a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona. “During his campaign in 2016, Donald Trump said women should be punished for seeking an abortion.”
Harris’ campaign trip to Arizona comes just days after the state’s high court upheld a 160-year-old law outlawing abortions unless the patient’s life is in danger. Harris blamed Trump in a statement following the ruling, saying, “It’s a reality because of Donald Trump, who brags about being ‘proudly the person responsible’ for overturning Roe v. Wade.”
Trump criticized the Arizona ruling as going too far, just days after he said abortion should be left up to states to decide and that he wouldn’t support a federal ban on the procedure. He doubled down in a Truth Social post just hours before Harris’ event Friday, calling for Arizona officials “to remedy what has happened.”
Multiple aides to the vice president have told POLITICO that Harris has been worried that Trump was going to try to moderate his position publicly. While traveling to Charlotte last week, Harris was told about the former president’s promise to release a statement about abortion this week, possibly calling for a 15-week ban.
“She basically said, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t do the 15 weeks at all, if he tried to do something to muddy the waters. And so we need to be ready to make sure that no matter what his statement says, he’s on the hook for all the state bans that are in existence,’” said a campaign official granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The campaign stop in the battleground state was planned prior to the court decision and was originally meant to be about student loans. But as it became clear that the decision was going to be announced, Harris told her team that it instead needed to be focused on abortion.
For years, Harris’ abortion events have been from her official side. Friday’s appearance marked a shift to campaign events that allowed the vice president to attack Trump more directly, calling him “the architect of this health care crisis.”
“She’s not subject to the Hatch Act and she can say whatever the heck she wants,” said one senior Harris aide granted anonymity to speak candidly. “[But] she knew we needed to pivot to more campaign style and campaign paid for events so that we could really be unencumbered in how we tell the story and how we make sure that voters understand the connection of an 1864 ban in Arizona and what that means, why that’s Donald Trump’s fault.”
At the heart of the shift: the campaign’s concern that Trump’s attempt to moderate his position is going to work. “We’d be crazy not to be worried about that,” the Harris aide added.
The ruling has energized local abortion rights advocates who have been working to put a ballot measure in front of Arizona voters in November. Groups such as the ACLU of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona say that they have acquired enough signatures to establish a ballot measure, according to the Arizona Republic.
The campaign said Harris spoke to more than 100 abortion rights activists and supporters.
“Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: More bans, more suffering and less freedom,” Harris said. “Just like he did in Arizona, he basically wants to take America back to the 1800s. But we are not going to let that happen because here’s the deal: This is 2024, not the 1800s. And we’re not going back. We are not going back.”