Health Care

Pro-DeSantis super PAC slams Trump over abortion criticism

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pauses as he addresses the Family Research Council's Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, D.C., on Friday, September 15, 2023.

Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) presidential bid, aired a new ad Tuesday slamming former President Trump over his remarks about abortion.

The ad, titled “Trump’s Betrayal of the Pro-Life Movement,” touts Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’s (R) six-week abortion ban bill and goes after Trump, who slammed DeSantis during his interview with “Meet The Press” host Kristen Welker that aired Sunday. 

“Gov. Reynolds signed the so-called fetal heartbeat bill in front of an ecstatic crowd in Des Moines,” the ad mentions. “The bill would ban most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. The right to life is fundamental to everything that we stand for.”

The ad says that Trump “isn’t standing with them” and showcases his answer from the NBC interview: “I mean ‘DeSanctus’ was willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban,” Trump said. “I think what he did was a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.” 

The ad then praises DeSantis for “promoting a culture of life” and singing the six-week abortion ban. 

“We have delivered in Florida on promoting a culture of life and that means signing the heartbeat bill into law. It was the right thing to do. Don’t let anyone tell you it wasn’t.”  

The DeSantis campaign has zeroed in on Trump’s stance on abortion as the former president continues to lead in most polls.

The Florida governor’s campaign went after Trump Sunday for his responses to Welker’s interview. The DeSantis War Room account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, said that he is “selling out conservatives” to win praise from “corporate media or the Left.”

“Trump says he will compromise with Democrats on abortion so that they’re nice to him: ‘Both sides are going to like me.’ Then he says it’s “a terrible thing” babies with heartbeats are protected in Iowa, Florida, and South Carolina. Ron DeSantis will NEVER sell out conservatives to win praise from corporate media or the Left.”

DeSantis’s communications director Andrew Romeo said Trump’s compromises with the Democrats brought “disastrous results” during his term.   

“We’ve already seen the disastrous results of Donald Trump compromising with Democrats: over $7 trillion in new debt, an unfinished border wall, and the jailbreak First Step Act letting violent criminals back on to the streets,” Romeo wrote. “Republicans across the country know that Ron DeSantis will never back down.”