DeSantis Fires Back After Trump’s Attack on ‘Harsh’ Abortion Ban: ‘I Was Proud to Do It, He Won’t Answer Whether He’d Sign It’

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis fired back at former president Donald Trump after the latter attacked a ban on abortion after six weeks signed by DeSantis as “harsh” in an interview with The Messenger on Monday.

Asked about Trump’s comments at a press conference Tuesday, DeSantis stood by his support for the ban.

“Protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost probably 99 percent of pro-lifers support,” said DeSantis. “It’s something that other states like Iowa under Governor Kim Reynolds have enacted and I think that, as a Florida resident, he didn’t give an answer about would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did that had all of the exceptions that people talk about. The legislature put it in. I’ve signed the bill, I was proud to do it.”

“He [Trump] won’t answer whether he would sign it or not,” added DeSantis.

#BREAKING: DeSantis hits Trump on suggesting the six-week abortion ban may be “too harsh”

“As a Florida resident, he didn’t give an answer about ‘would you sign the heartbeat bill that Florida did?’ […] He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.” pic.twitter.com/2yYoYZSt7F

— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) May 16, 2023

Trump told The Messenger on Monday that “If you look at what DeSantis did, a lot of people don’t even know if he knew what he was doing. But he signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”

During a CNN town hall event last week, Trump declined to say what kind of federal restrictions on abortion he’d support as president, declaring simply that “We want to do what’s right for everybody.”

One recent survey of Republican voters conducted by Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio found that 68% of GOP primary voters support and just 27% oppose a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

DeSantis’s rejoinder comes amid escalating tensions between Trump’s camp and pro-life activists. Last month, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser called the Trump campaign’s previously stated opposition to federal restrictions “morally indefensible.”