Major news outlets are falsely claiming that Trump said abortion “should be left to the states” in a video announcement Monday on his Truth Social platform. In fact, Trump said only that abortion “will” be left to the states, a statement of law that does not address how he would respond if Congress passed a federal abortion ban or how regulators would treat abortion under a second Trump administration.

Sure, now abortion is available where everyone wants it—except in the 21 states where people want it and yet it is banned or restricted because lawmakers decided it shouldn’t be. [...]

In Texas, for example, Kate Cox sued for the right to an abortion under the supposed exceptions to the state’s ban. Despite a court agreeing that she was entitled to an abortion, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened to prosecute any hospitals or doctors who provided such care. The state Supreme Court sided with Paxton. Cox ended up fleeing the state in order to exercise her will.

In short, Trump both advocated for a ban, fueling the very pro-abortion energy that has electorally cost Republicans so dearly over the past two cycles, while also refusing to outright call for a ban, claiming that his own political exigencies were more important. Yet conservatives have backed themselves into a corner—if abortion is murder, then any compromise is an obscenity. That’s why these same zealots are going after IVF and contraceptives.