WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at noon Saturday to a group of politically influential evangelicals who fiercely support him but would like the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to promise to do more to restrict abortion.
Trump’s stated refusal to sign a national ban on abortion and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue clash with many evangelicals, a key part of Trump’s base who are expected to help him win voters in the elections before Democratic President Joe Biden.
While Trump nominated three of the justices on the Supreme Court, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, he has argued that supporting a national ban would hurt Republicans politically. Two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal generally, according to a poll last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Ralph Reed, founder and president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which Trump will address on Saturday, said people in his movement would like to see a federal ban on abortion and for Republican elected officials to be “brave figures” who are “articulating their firmly held pro-life views.”
Reed also noted that Trump’s positions do not put him at risk of losing the deep support of evangelical voters who give him “more slack than they probably would give another politician.”
“I don’t think it’s going to hurt him at all because he has enormous credibility on this issue,” Reed said. “He did more for the pro-life and pro-family cause than any president we have had in the history of the movement.”
Those attending Saturday’s event echoed this.
“I would prefer that he sign a national ban,” said Jerri Dickinson, a 78-year-old retired social worker from New Jersey and a member of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “However, I understand that, under the Constitution, that decision should be left to the states.”
John Pudner, a 59-year-old who recently started a chapter of the Faith and Freedom Coalition in his native Wisconsin, said members of the movement are loyal to Trump, but “overall we would like it to be more pro-life.”
Later Saturday, Trump plans to hold a nighttime rally in Philadelphia.
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Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.
