‘I got it done’: Trump boasts to religious right about his personal role in overturning Roe v. Wade

Former President Donald Trump returned to the nation’s capital Saturday to take a victory lap on the anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson, reminding conservatives that he named the Supreme Court justices who were pivotal in overturning Roe v. Wade.

“I got it done, and nobody thought it was even a possibility,” Mr. Trump said at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference.

“They’d been fighting — good people, strong people, smart people — had been fighting for 50 years, and it never even came close to getting done,” he said. “I don’t believe they’ve ever even taken a vote. They never even came close. It was something that wasn’t going to happen. I got it done.”

Mr. Trump, who is far and away the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, dinged his rivals who trumpet their pro-life bona fides before conservative audiences. He said his record tops them all.

“A woman stood up and said, ‘This guy [Trump] ended Roe v. Wade. How the hell can you go against him?’ And I sort of said that myself, actually,” Mr. Trump said. The audience laughed and cheered. “But I’m proud to be the most pro-life president in American history.”

The Supreme Court ended the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide with its June 24, 2022, ruling in Dobbs. The vote was 6-3. Three of the six justices making up the majority were Trump nominees.

The annual conference featured many of the candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Mr. Trump’s rivals strived to test his hold on the religious right, a crucial voting bloc in the Republican primary contests.

Mr. Pence, a devout evangelical Christian, called on Mr. Trump and the sprawling field of Republican presidential hopefuls to rally behind a minimum 15-week federal abortion ban. Mr. Trump has been noncommittal about a federal ban.

“The battle for life is far from over,” Mr. Pence said. “We have not come to the end of our cause. We have simply come to the end of the beginning.”

He admonished Republicans who say the fight is now in the states and should be finished at the federal level or blame election losses on the end of Roe.

“Let me say from my heart: The cause of life is the calling of our time, and we must not rest and must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in this country,” Mr. Trump told the crowd of Christian conservative activists.

Mr. DeSantis touted his signing of a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in Florida.

“It was the right thing to do. Don’t let anyone tell you it wasn’t,” said Mr. DeSantis, who has not spelled out where he stands on a federal ban.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was booed when he said Mr. Trump “let us down” by being a poor leader and not taking responsibility for his mistakes.

“You can boo all you want,” Mr. Christie told the angry audience. “But here is the thing: Our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do. People have to stand up and take accountability for what they do.”

By the close of the conference, the crowd left no doubt of their allegiance to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump, whose speech capped the three-day conference, portrayed his candidacy as a fight to preserve American greatness against the forces of Marxism, communism and globalism. The 90-minute speech brought crowd members repeatedly to their feet and prompted chants of “USA!” and “We love Trump!”

If he weren’t running, he said, his enemies would “focus on whoever was leading, and they would go after that person, male or female, just as viciously as they go after me.”

“And that person wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he said. “That’s why you have no choice but to vote for Donald Trump.”

He characterized his campaign as a bulwark in defense of conservative priorities such as parental rights, protecting the unborn, banning gender transition procedures for minors, and religious freedom.

“No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have, and I will keep on fighting, and I’ll fight hard until I’m back behind that desk at the Oval Office, the Resolute Desk,” he said.

As the crowd roared, Mr. Trump turned to Faith & Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed.

“Hey, Ralph! I have to ask Ralph a question: Were your other candidates treated this way? I don’t think so,” Mr. Trump said. “Actually, I saw one who was booed off the stage.”

Mr. Trump repeated some of the lines that have frustrated Republicans, including his insistence that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. He no doubt gave his attorneys heartburn by presenting his defense against charges of mishandling classified documents that the Justice Department filed this month.

“I’m probably the only person in the history of this country who’s been indicted, and my numbers went up,” he declared as the audience erupted in cheers.

Packed house and a crowd going crazy for @realDonaldTrump at Faith and Freedom #RTM2023 pic.twitter.com/u5tb7Hgzwf

— Steven Cheung (@TheStevenCheung) June 25, 2023

Mr. Trump put a little distance between himself and the pro-life movement by saying he favors exceptions to abortion bans for rape and incest, as well as to save the life of the mother. Not all pro-lifers are on board with the rape and incest exceptions.

President Biden said Saturday that “MAGA extremists have taken credit for killing Roe v. Wade,” but Mr. Trump urged conservatives to pin the label on “the demented late-term abortionists in the Democrat Party.”

“They are the radical extremists; we’re not the radical extremists,” Mr. Trump said. “And politicians have to say that.”