Trump says he is ‘the father of IVF’ at women’s town hall packed with his supporters

During a Fox News town hall aimed at women and featuring an all-female audience, former President Donald Trump defended the federal rollback of abortion rights, ignored the death of a Georgia woman under her state’s restrictive abortion law, and called to a U.S. senator from Alabama “fantastically attractive.”

The Fox News event, which was taped Tuesday night in Cumming, Georgia, and broadcast Wednesday morning, was packed with Trump supporters, including a woman in an “RNC delegate” hat from the Trump convention. Republican Party, feeding the pre-selected Republican Party presidential candidate softball questions.

“I want to thank you for coming to a room full of women that the current administration would consider domestic terrorists,” said one audience member.

The vast majority of questions in the hour-long segment — which covered topics ranging from the border and immigration to “men in women’s sports,” a derogatory reference to transgender athletes — allowed Trump to present himself as a protector of women’s safety. without any resistance. from host, Fox New’s Harris Faulkner, who interrupted Trump at moments when he seemed ready to launch into tirades about the 2020 election and electric vehicles.

“We had the most secure border. We had the best economy. Think about it, a combination of security and finance,” Trump falsely claimed about his presidency during the event.

Both campaigns are making an effort in the run-up to election day to bolster support in certain key constituencies.

The gender gap is particularly large between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump, with female voters favoring Harris by 9 points, enough to swing an election.

The issue of reproductive rights was barely broached during Trump’s town hall in Georgia, a swing state with a six-week abortion ban. The issue finally came up in the penultimate question and was framed as an issue that Democrats are using to gain an electoral advantage.

“After years and years of turmoil, now the issue is back in the United States,” said Trump, who has boasted in the past that he nominated the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade – a measure most Americans did not support.

“No one wanted it to be in the federal government,” Trump lied. “Five, six or seven years ago, they started talking about weeks and this and that. But what they wanted is they wanted to go back to the states for the people’s vote, and that’s what we have.”

But Trump noted that voters in Ohio and Kansas, both states that voted for him, approved measures at the ballot box protecting abortion rights after the overturn of Roe. He suggested that voters in those states might come to regret their decisions — while also arguing that his ultimate goal was for states to establish their own abortion laws.

“This will be redone, because there is already a movement in these states,” Trump said.

To appear supportive of reproductive rights, the Republican Party is trying to convey that the party supports in vitro fertilization after an Alabama court ruled earlier this year that frozen embryos used in the procedure qualify as “born” for the purposes of civil liability.

“I am the father of in vitro fertilization,” Trump boasted, adding that he had received requests for in vitro fertilization from Alabama Republican and U.S. Senator Katie Britt, “a fantastically attractive young person.”

Trump did not explain why he would refer to himself as the “father of IVF” beyond simply supporting the procedure.

At the start of the town hall, Trump and the Fox host mocked a Harris-Walz campaign call on Tuesday that featured the family of a Georgia woman who ProPublica reported died under Georgia’s abortion law. The woman, Amber Thurman, traveled to North Carolina to take abortion pills and was later denied urgent, life-saving care in Georgia after suffering a deadly complication.

“We will have better ratings, I promise,” Trump said of his town hall.

Harris called Trump’s comments about in vitro fertilization “pretty bizarre” in comments to reporters Wednesday afternoon. “He needs to take responsibility for the fact that 1 in 3 women in America live under Trump’s abortion ban,” she said.