Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Arizona Supreme Court went too far in ruling the state's 160-year-old near-total abortion ban can be enforced.
Trump made the comment as he spoke to reporters after he landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ahead of a campaign fundraiser.
"Yeah, they did," Trump said about the court's judges when he was asked whether they went too far. "That'll be straightened out, and as you know it's all about states' rights."
He predicted that Arizona's governor and others "are going to bring it back into reason."
While he said the court overstepped, Trump also reiterated his position that the issue of abortion should be left up to states.
"It's the will of the people," he said, adding that he would not sign a national abortion ban as president.
Under the law from 1864, anyone who performs the procedure or helps a woman access such care could face felony charges and up to two to five years in prison. The law includes an exception to save the woman’s life.
President Joe Biden's campaign said in response to Trump's remarks that Trump "owns the suffering and chaos happening right now, including in Arizona, because he proudly overturned Roe."
"Trump lies constantly — about everything — but has one track record: banning abortion every chance he gets," Biden campaign communication director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
"The guy who wants to be a dictator on day one will use every tool at his disposal to ban abortion nationwide, with or without Congress, and running away from reporters to his private jet like a coward doesn’t change that reality," Tyler said.
At a stop at Chick-fil-A after his initial comments on the ruling, Trump was asked whether doctors should be punished for performing abortions.
"I’ll let that be to the states," he said. "You know everything we’re doing now is states and states' rights, and what we wanted to do is get it back to the states, because for 53 years it’s been a fight, and now the states are handling it, and some have handled it very well, and the others will end up handling it very well."
Trump said Monday that abortion laws and policies should be controlled by individual states. He did not take a position, however, on the possibility of a national abortion ban that has been pushed by conservatives in Congress, including many of his allies.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” he said in a more than four-minute-long video posted on his Truth Social account.
Trump’s position has drawn blowback from some Republicans, who have wanted him to promote the possibility of a national ban. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for example, criticized Trump in a statement. “Dobbs does not require that conclusion legally and the pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child — not geography,” he said.
Some Arizona Republicans have distanced themselves from the ruling, including GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, who had called the statute “a great law.”
Trump greeted a small crowd of supporters at the airport Wednesday. Speaking to cameras, he blasted Biden and his leadership, saying he has “abandoned Israel,” and he repeated a line he recently made.
“Any Jewish person that votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined,” he said.
