- The Washington Times - Friday, August 30, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is launching a bus tour next week focusing on abortion rights that will make 50 stops across the country over the next few months.

The tour’s first stop will be Tuesday in Palm Beach, Florida, where former President Donald Trump has a home.

Joining the tour will be second gentleman Douglas Emhoff; Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat; Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez; TV commentator Ana Navarro; and Anya Cook, a reproductive rights storyteller.

“We are going to have a simple message: We are going to hold Donald Trump and J.D. Vance accountable for the devastating impact of Roe v. Wade and their threats to access [in vitro fertilization],” campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz told reporters Friday on a conference call to announce the bus trip.

“So every day between now and Election Day, we are going to make sure that the communities that will decide this election know the fundamentals here and the fundamental choice in this election: Kamala Harris is going to fight for your rights and Donald Trump is going to take them away,” he said.

Latorya Beasley, an Alabama social worker whose dream of having a child through in vitro fertilization was put on hold after the state Supreme Court halted the procedure, said she will be on the bus tour for more than a week. She was among first lady Jill Biden’s guests at President Biden’s State of the Union address this year.

Donald Trump is trying to hide from his record, and I’m going to get out there and meet voters and tell them the truth,” she said.

Also on the tour will be abortion access advocates Amanda Zurawski, Hadley Duvall and Kaitlyn Joshua. All three spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

The tour will make at least 50 stops in red, blue and battleground states over the next couple of months, campaign organizers said. After Palm Beach, the bus tour will travel to North Carolina and Georgia next week.

Surrogates on the tour will focus on talking to voters about Ms. Harris’ plan to restore abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Abortion is a key issue in this election, with Democrats warning voters that Republicans would further restrict access to reproductive health services if Mr. Trump is elected in November.

Ms. Harris has made abortion access the center of her campaign, pledging she would reverse Republican-backed anti-abortion policies. As a senator, she co-sponsored legislation that would ban states from imposing restrictions on abortion rights and vowed to codify Roe v. Wade in her administration.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has tried to soften his image on the issue over fears of voter backlash. Earlier in the campaign, he proudly took credit for appointing three justices to the Supreme Court who ruled in favor of overturning the national right to an abortion.

He indicated last week that he would vote in favor of abortion rights in Florida, where it’s on the ballot. He said a six-week ban is “too short” and that women should have “more time.”

“I’m going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he told NBC News.

The Trump campaign quickly shot down the notion that the former president indicated how he would be voting.

“President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida. He simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement.

In the same interview with NBC, Mr. Trump said his administration would fund IVF.

“We’re doing this because we think it’s great. And we need great children, beautiful children in our country, we actually need them,” he said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, said Mr. Trump’s comments aren’t supported by his record of restricting abortion access.

“Trump thinks women are stupid and that we can be gaslighted,” she told reporters on the conference call. “He seems to believe that he can do one thing, and when he talks to his extremist base and then turn around and smile at the overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see access to abortion and IVF protected and lie about it and we’ll believe it.”

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Please read our comment policy before commenting.

Click to Read More and View Comments

Click to Hide