(LifeSiteNews) — Failed Republican candidate for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon told former President Donald Trump that he was “right” to help tone down her “no exceptions” abortion platform during her 2022 campaign.
Dixon lost to Democrat incumbent Gretchen Whitmer 55 to 44 percent last fall. Whitmer’s campaign made Dixon’s opposition to abortion at any stage of pregnancy a key aspect of her successful re-election bid.
Dixon was interviewing the 45th president last week on her podcast when she told him he was “absolutely right” in urging her to not be so outspoken.
“I just want you to know that — and I’ll tell my viewers — that you came to me and you said, ‘You got to talk differently about abortion,’” she remarked. “And we could not pivot — we could not pivot in time.”
Trump famously came under intense scrutiny by members of the pro-life movement for comments that were interpreted as him blaming them for the GOP’s lackluster performance in the 2022 midterms. Trump had said pro-lifers should focus their efforts on calling out the “radical” policies of Democrats who support late-term abortion, and to not broadcast their own “no exceptions” stance so much lest they be “destined to doom” electorally.
“I hope that you are able to navigate that issue in ‘24 and that we can win those women back,” Dixon further told Trump. “They are already putting out attack ads, and it is not a fair issue for them to attack on.”
“Yep, that’s what happened to you,” Trump replied. “And that’s what happened to a lot of other people and didn’t happen to me because, you know, there’s a way of talking about it… [The Democrats are] the radicals, and you have to explain [that]. And I think exceptions are very important.”
Pro-lifers point out that life begins at conception, that the deliberate killing of an unborn baby is never medically necessary, and that unborn babies are not at fault for the conditions of their conception. Candidates, they argue, simply need to better explain those facts and voters will come to embrace a more pro-life stance.
Until June of this year, Trump had resisted supporting a role for the federal government in the regulation of abortion. Before then, he told journalists that he was going to “look into” the issue. But at the Evangelical Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. this summer, he unexpectedly said “there of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life.”
“We will bring everybody together to protect our precious unborn babies in a very, very big way,” he added.