“I saw quite a change,” said CBS’s Lesley Stahl after interviewing Donald Trump for 60 Minutes on Sunday. “He was much more subdued, much more serious.”
Really?
Consider Trump’s comments on abortion. “Are you looking to appoint a Justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?” Stahl asked. Trump’s response: “I’m pro-life, the judges will be pro-life.”
With that statement, Trump casually blew up decades of conservative legal argument. For years, conservatives have excoriated liberals for supposedly imposing their personal moral views rather than interpreting the Constitution. But asked whether his Supreme Court justices would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, Trump didn’t even feign interest in whether there’s a right to abortion in the Constitution. He said he’s against abortion personally and promised that his appointees would be too. Constitutional interpretation be damned.
It got stranger. “What about overturning the laws?” Stahl asked. To which Trump replied, “If it ever were overturned it would go back to the states.” Stahl drew out the implications: “Then some women won’t be able to get an abortion.” Trump disagreed: “No, it will go back to the states,” before adding, that “perhaps” women wanting an abortion will “have to go to another state. We’ll see what happens. That has a long, long way to go” before it becomes a reality.