Trump to women: Stop ‘thinking about abortion.’ You’re broke and depressed, but I can make you happy

Despite dragging women’s reproductive rights back five decades, being adjudicated as a rapist who also defamed his victim, facing nearly two dozen other sexual assault allegations, and paying for all of that with a huge gender gap in the polls, former president Donald Trump promises to rescue poor, depressed and unhappy women — who seem inclined to elect Kamala Harris as the first woman president.

Trump — who also allegedly had a sexual encounter with a porn star while married — is well aware he is losing badly among women, and he went on an all caps rant on social media on Friday night:

“WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS SAFE ON THE STREETS THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, AND ARE LESS OPTIMISTIC AND CONFIDENT IN THE FUTURE THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO,” Trump posted. “I WILL FIX ALL OF THAT AND FAST AND AT LONG LAST, THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL BE OVER. WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE. YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE WITH THE STATES AND A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE.”

The latest poll of likely voters shows Harris maintains a solid lead over Trump among women, with 53 percent support to his 41 percent.

Day after day on the campaign and in a recent debate, Trump repeats the lie — that “everyone” wanted women’s reproductive rights overturned and handed to the states to determine.

For 50 years, polling has shown that is false. Trump’s MAGA base — mainly the evangelical wing of the Republican party — sought to ban abortion.

And now that Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court justices have overturned Roe v. Wade, 20 states have implemented some type of abortion ban, with deadly consequences. As Harris has hammered Trump on reproductive rights while calling restrictions “Trump abortion bans,” Trump has watched support among women hemorrhage.

In recent campaign events, Harris, the Democratic nominee, has focused on Pro Publica reporting that two women in Georgia died after they did not receive proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.

In a virtual rally on Thursday hosted by Oprah Winfrey, the mother of one of the women — whose death was ruled preventable by a medical panel — told the audience that she was a “broken mother.” Many in the audience and on a Zoom call weeped as she told the story of her daughter, Amber Nicole Thurman.

Shanette Williams tearfully told viewers that “people around the world need to know that this was preventable.” Williams said she initially did not want to go public about her daughter’s 2022 death but ultimately decided it was important for people to understand her daughter “was not a statistic. She was loved.”

Harris told the family: “I’m just so sorry. The courage you all have shown is extraordinary.”

In a campaign stop the next day in Atlanta, Harris invoked Thurman’s name and encouraged the audience to say it out loud — and they repeated it as teary women wiped their eyes.

Thurman waited more than 20 hours at the hospital for a routine medical procedure known as a D&C to clear out remaining tissue after taking abortion pills. She developed sepsis and died.

“She was loved,” Harris said. “And she should be alive today.”

The AP contributed to this report.

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