Barron Trump told Patrick Bet-David and Vincent Oshana at a recent dinner he can now be arrested if he commits crimes, “I’m 18, now I can get arrested for things. Now I know the media will come after me for things.”
It has been noted that President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign blasted the media over “egregiously false” coverage of former President Donald Trump’s abortion message, and called BS on the idea Trump is “opposed to national bans” via Mediaite.
Trump took to Truth Social and posted a four-and-a-half-minute video Monday morning that leaned heavily into the well-worn and false attack on Democrats that they believe in legally “executing the baby” after it has been born.
It has been noted that he also bragged about ending Roe and appeared to take the position that states should decide limits on abortion while urging them to take measures that would still allow Republicans to win elections.
The Biden campaign has made Trump’s announcement a major focus on Monday and Tuesday, and has aimed at media coverage that portrays Trump as stepping back from a national abortion ban.
The Biden campaign recently held a press conference call on Monday with Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Deputy Communications Director Brooke Goren, and Kaitlyn Kash in response to Trump’s announcement.
In her opening remarks, Goren read off offending headlines and quotes from The Associated Press, The Washington Post, CNN, and USA Today:
BROOKE GOREN: For rape or incest. It’s important to remember that the majority of these 21 bans, in effect, do not have these exceptions.
Here’s what we do know. Trump has said he’ll be, quote, “leading the charge in passing a national abortion ban.”.
Trump, in his project 2025 MAGA allies are actively making plans to ban abortion in all 50 states, with or without the help of Congress. And Trump is proudly responsible for the nightmare. Women like Kaitlyn Kash are living through. Trump kept his word to overturn Roe in his last term, and he will not rest until he has banned abortion across the entire country. Period.
We all know this and the coverage needs to reflect it. Yet today, we’re still reading headlines that say Trump, quote, “declines to endorse a national abortion ban,” that Trump, quote, “rebuffed pressure to the campaign on a national limit,” that Trump, quote, “decided to punt the politically fraught issue to the states and not back a national abortion ban.”
One particularly egregiously false headline even said Trump, quote, “opposes a national abortion ban and will leave it up to the will of the people.”
Trump didn’t decline anything. All he did was take credit again for the nightmare he created. That’s the news that’s important here.
And on Tuesday, the Biden-Harris campaign sent a pair of memos to reporters that related to coverage of the announcement. The first was an aggregation of a Media Matters analysis of the coverage headlined “ICYMI: Media Matters: News Outlets Help Trump Obfuscate His Abortion Position” that singled out this “key point”:
Key Point: “Major news outlets are falsely claiming that Trump said abortion ‘should be left to the states’ in a video announcement Monday on his Truth Social platform. In fact, Trump said only that abortion ‘will’ be left to the states, a statement of law that does not address how he would respond if Congress passed a federal abortion ban or how regulators would treat abortion under a second Trump administration.”
Meanwhile, another memo — entitled “Trump To National Abortion Banners: Stand Back and Stand By” rounded up coverage of Trump allies and anti-abortion rights activists saying they still believe Trump is in favor of a ban.
Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika concluded that memo with a statement:
“When far-right, extreme activists who’ve spent their careers fighting for a national abortion ban say Donald Trump is for a national abortion ban — he’s for a national abortion ban.”
