WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized former President Donald Trump's recent comments about reproductive rights, saying he needs to trust women to make their own decisions.
"I don't think the women of America need him to say he's going to protect them," Harris said during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, referring to previous comments from Trump. "The women of America need him to trust them."
Trump said in an all-caps post to Truth Social last week that women "will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states."
"I will protect women at a level never seen before," he said. "They will finally be healthy, hopeful, safe, and secure."
Asked if Americans can trust her on that front, Harris said "yes."
"I am not perfect, but I will tell you I'm always going to put the needs of the people first," she said.
Harris separately pointed to Trump's previous comments suggesting women should be punished for having abortions.
"Donald Trump is also the person who said women should be punished for exercising a decision that they rightly should be able to make about their own body and their future," Harris said. "So I think we would all agree that as a result of that perspective that he has about women, he also then chose three members of the United States Supreme Court who did as he intended, undid the protections of Roe v Wade."
Harris was referring to comments Trump made in 2016 when he said that the "answer is that there has to be some form of punishment, yeah," when asked about punishing women who broke a theoretical abortion ban.
Later, his campaign said that if abortion were made illegal, "the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman."
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Harris' remarks in the interview.
