PARTY DIVIDES

Prominent Evangelical Criticizes Trump on Abortion Stance

Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats called for a challenger to unseat Trump in the Republican primary again after disavowing the former president in December.

Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats has doubled down on his opposition to Donald Trump’s leadership of the Republican Party, taking particular aim at Trump’s shifting stance on abortion. In an interview on NewsNation, Vander Plaats, CEO of The Family Leader, called Trump’s responses to abortion-related questions on a recent CNN town hall “a disaster” and echoed previous calls he made in December for Trump to step back. Vander Plaats said that Trump was wrong to blame Republican-led abortion bans for the party’s poor showing in the midterms, when the fault really lies with the former president. Trump “could have said ‘Hey, look, I’m the guy who gave you three Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade,’ but instead he then alienates himself from the pro-life community by saying, ‘You’re the reason we didn’t do better in 2022,” Vander Plaats told hosts. He added that the door is “wide open” for another Republican candidate to challenge Trump in the Republican primary. Trump fired back in a post to Truth Social, saying he alone was able to “kill Roe v. Wade” and that without him “the pro Life movement would have just kept losing.”

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Chris Hippensteel

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