MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Rips Into Trump on Abortion While Recalling 2015 Interview: ‘He Wanted to Cause Pain and Suffering and Punishment!’
MSNBC’s Morning Joe was geared up for their Election Day coverage on Tuesday with network veteran Chris Matthews, who was a key player in a defining moment for former President Donald Trump’s many positions on abortion.
In 2015, then-candidate Trump did an interview with Matthews during which he said that women should be punished for having an abortion. He later walked back the comments (while still supporting bans on abortion), but when he was asked by Matthews, “Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no?” Trump said, “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.” Matthews tried to get him to clarify by asking, “For the women?” Trump said, “Yeah, there has to be some form.”
It was a soundbite that made it into several campaign ads from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, including in the battleground state of Pennsylvania where Matthews was broadcasting from on Tuesday.
MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire asked Matthews what he was seeing in Pennsylvania as far as the ground game went, but Matthews turned the conversation back to the abortion issue, which has been a major voting issue for women since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade thanks to Trump’s conservative appointees:
[T]he message that has gotten through is what we’ve talked about, you’ve talked about it on the program so many times, Joe and Mika, about Trump saying “what I’m going to do.” He has that aspect from the 1940s. He says what he’s going to do. He said “There needs to be some form of punishment.” Punishment! What a strange word to use about voters. “I want them to be punished. Women who have an abortion [should] be punished.” That incredible language which has been reappearing over and over in the ads here in Philadelphia, certainly in this battleground state, over and over again, people look and say, “Wait a minute, he’s talking about me. He’s talking about me and my body.” This is “all politics is local,” guys. This is as local as you can get. This is your body. And this guy is saying, “I’m going to punish you.” It’s extraordinary.
And the fact that they’ve brought that back from 19 well, 2015 from Green Bay interview with me, he really means it. And that’s why he put those three guys on the Supreme Court, those three people. He wanted to do what he wanted to do. Everything that’s going on in this country, all the horror that’s going on in these states around the country, all of it’s going on because Trump wanted it to happen. He wanted to cause pain and suffering and punishment. I’ve never heard a politician like this. “I want to punish women.” That’s more than half the voters! And you’re talking about punishing them, and it’s all over the air. I mean, it’s his words, nobody else’s. He said it. He promised it and he’s done it.
Watch the video above via MSNBC.
