The Daily - Could a National Abortion Ban Save Republicans?

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

With the midterm elections a few weeks away, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, forwarded a plan to save his party from the growing backlash over abortion.But the proposal — a federal ban on almost all terminations after 15 weeks — has served mostly to expose the division among Republicans about the issue.Guest: Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Mr. Graham’s effort has reignited debate on an issue that Republicans have worked to confront before midterm elections in which abortion rights have become a potent issue.The rejection of Mr. Graham’s bill was the latest misfire in the party’s struggle to unite behind a clear strategy.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. With the midterm elections just a few weeks away, a Republican senator has proposed a plan to save his party from the growing voter backlash over abortion. I spoke with my colleague, Lisa Lair, about why that plan has backfired. It's Thursday, September 15th.

Lisa, I wonder if you can describe this bill that Senator Lindsey Graham has just introduced. So you have Senator Lindsey Graham. He's the senior senator from South Carolina, confidant for a while of former President Trump. And he comes out. Thank you all. In this press conference that his team has widely advertised the night before with this bill. I think we should have a law at the federal level that would say after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand. A 15-week abortion ban.

So that means abortion would be allowed up until 15 weeks, which is just past the first trimester. There would be exceptions for rape, incest, for the physical health of the mother. We have the ability in Washington to speak on this issue if we choose. I have chosen to speak. I've chosen to craft legislation that I think is eminently reasonable. Now, of course, this really has no chance of passing or even being taken up. Democrats control the Senate and they control what ends up on the floor of that body. But this is more than even a real legislative proposal. So we're going to have an election in 2022. This is a political proposal. If we take back the House and the Senate, I can assure you we'll have a vote on our bill. If the Democrats are in charge, I don't know if we'll ever have a vote on our bill.

I have to say, Lisa, that is very counterintuitive as a message for Republicans, given everything that we know. Our colleague Asad Herndon was just on the show a couple of days ago telling us that for Republicans, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has been a political disaster because it has turned off lots and lots of voters. And now Graham's solution is basically a ban on abortion. It's a doubling down on the thing that seems to be hurting Republicans. It kind of feels like after shooting themselves in one foot, Graham is asking the party to turn around and shoot themselves in the other foot, right? Yeah, it is counterintuitive. But you have to understand that what Graham thinks he's doing

is providing a solution to a really serious political problem faced by his party. When Roe was overturned in June, Republicans were really caught flat footed. And despite pushing for exactly this for many, many decades, they really had no national message or national plan for how to operate in this brand new post-Roe environment. And what the country saw was just a variety of things happening in the states, from complete bans to other Republicans saying, well, we shouldn't allow abortion until 20 weeks. We had these very messy debates where you had Republicans debating the finer points of issues that were really horrifying, I think, to a lot of the country, things like child rape. So you had Republicans plunged into this really complicated issue that's not just politics,

but is also women's autonomy, is also health, is also religion, is also morality, and trying to navigate these cross currents in this really heated midterm election environment. And they basically had no guidance from the national party on how to do it. The Democrats, however, had a really clear national message, which is that they thought there should be a federal right to an abortion. And that was a message that really solved a lot of their political problems that they had over the summer by energizing their base really strongly. And we saw that show up in a number of ways. We, of course, had this Kansas referendum solely on the question of abortion that Democrats won. We saw voter turnout rise, particularly among women in a number of states.

And we saw Democrats do better than expected in a lot of the special elections. Right. It's really interesting because when we think about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we often think about how unprepared Democrats were at first. We've talked about this a lot on the show. Democrats were just caught flat-footed. What you're saying is that Republicans didn't have a plan either, even though this was their cause. And while it now seems that Democrats do have a plan on abortion, at least on the national level, Republicans still don't.

They seem confused about what to say or do next. Exactly. They were basically the dog who caught the car, but it was inherently more complicated, I think, for Republicans because for so many decades, Republicans had been saying that abortion was something that had been returned to the states.

So how do you even craft a national policy on an issue that you've just spent nearly 50 years telling the American public should be a state's issue? Right. We saw Republican candidates across the country do all these different tactics to avoid the subject. Essentially, we saw House candidates all over the place start taking down sections of their website where they talked about how pro-life they were, how much they were against abortion. We saw candidates that previously talked a lot about being opposed to abortion rights in their midterms basically

avoid the subject. One really notable example was Doug Mastriano, who's a Republican running for governor in Pennsylvania. He previously said abortion was his number one issue, not only said that there should be a ban on the procedure, but that doctors who perform it should be criminalized. And now he barely talks about it all. In fact, when the ruling came out in the Supreme Court case, he even said it was a distraction from the more important issues of inflation and economics. And most interestingly, I think you saw Republicans running in more purple states, places like New Mexico, for example, cutting these direct to camera ads where they would go and say to voters, I know you've heard a lot about my views on abortion. But in fact, I support access to contraception, and I think we can find a reasonable compromise. And generally, they would also say that even if they were opposed to abortion, they definitely supported exceptions

for rape, incest, and life in the mother, which we know from polling are really popular with voters. Right. So this very rich political irony starts to unfold where after this hard-fought victory on abortion, Republicans are literally running away from their own triumph. Right. And that's exactly where Graham comes in. And essentially what he says is, hey, this is something we won. And to run away from it doesn't make any sense. First of all, because we're not taking the victory lap that we should, but also because simply it's not believable. Like the being against abortion is deeply identified with Republicans. There are very few Republicans left in the party who are open to any kind of abortion rights. So the idea that everyone turned on a dime after they got what they wanted, I mean, voters just aren't going to buy that. And that's what Graham saw. So let's talk a little bit more about Graham's plan, his vision for the Republican Party, owning this victory, leaning into it, and hoping that it will result in political gain. He chooses 15 weeks as the point after which abortions would be banned in the U.S. Why 15 weeks? Well, 15 weeks is a very poll-tested

place to end up. Public opinion polling about abortion is notoriously unreliable. It's a really difficult subject to measure public opinion on. A lot of it depends on how you ask the question. But there are some things we know. We know that Roe is fairly popular. We know that people are pretty comfortable with abortion, a majority of people, in fact, up until the first trimester ends, which is at 12 weeks, maybe even to 15 weeks. And we know also that at 15 weeks,

as you get further into that second trimester, people become less comfortable with the procedure. And Graham knows that too. So he thinks this is a policy that would be pretty broadly acceptable. And also it would still allow 93% of abortions to occur because that's the number, according to the testing, that would be impossible if it became law. But the vast majority of abortions could still happen in states where abortion is still legal. So what Graham thinks he's doing here is making Democrats defend later term abortions, which he believes are pretty unpopular. Interesting. So 15 weeks is chosen very deliberately because it's kind of a sweet spot within the American

public opinion on abortion. And what Graham is now doing is kind of flipping the script on abortion since Roe has been overturned. As you said, he's trying to make Democrats seem extreme in this moment by being unwilling to draw a line after 15 weeks, as many Americans, according to polls, would like. Yes. Essentially, what he's doing is after Republicans spent half a century pushing for something that was not popular, overturning Roe, he is now trying to recast the party as the reasonable players in this situation because, in fact, they would allow the vast majority of abortions to

happen during a time period that many Americans are comfortable with. And it's Democrats who want to push the boundaries into a place where the public is not comfortable. At least that's his rationale. Now, of course, Graham is a very conservative Republican from a very conservative state, South Carolina. And yet from the math you just described, Lisa, this bill would still let the vast majority of abortions occur. So how does that sit with anti-abortion groups and leaders? I'd have to think it would give them some real pause. Well, you don't overturn such a longstanding precedent in American life without being a little bit politically savvy. So they understand what's happening here. And the vast majority of

anti-abortion groups, the most powerful groups in that space, are okay with this compromise. Why? Well, sure, they wanted total bans coming out of the Dobbs decision, but they know that the Republican Party is not going to accept that right now. They know that Republicans are running away from their issue. And the threat of that to them politically feels much more urgent.

The idea that the Republican Party would drop the issue of abortion entirely when they believe their fight is not done than compromising at 15 weeks. They also know that while this is a national standard or would be a national standard if it became law, it still allows states to make their own rules. And it doesn't prevent you from having an earlier ban if that's what the lawmakers in a conservative state want. But what it does do is place limits on these more liberal states, which have grown in importance in this post-Roe environment because they are now the havens where people can go if they need these later-term procedures as half the states in the

country move towards limiting abortion rights. So for Republicans, this Lindsey Graham plan, So for Republicans, this Lindsey Graham plan, in theory, has several virtues. First, it allows Republicans to say, it's the Democrats who are extreme on abortion. We are not as hard right as you think. Even if you are some form of pro-choice, you can still vote Republican this fall in the midterms. And thirdly, this plan actually would, if it were ever implemented, reduce overall abortions, which of course appeals to anti-abortion leaders. So this is a win-win-win for Republicans. That's exactly right. But after the press conference, the question immediately becomes, is Graham speaking for himself or for a broader swath of the Republican Party? And is this the strategy that's going to help the party dig out of a pretty deep political hole after a really

damaging summer? Or is this just going to make their problems worse? We'll be right back. So Lisa, what happens after Graham introduces this 15-week ban on abortion, this plan to save the Republican Party from its abortion woes? What is the response? Well, the first thing that happens is Democrats essentially throw themselves a party. I think what you're seeing there is a conflict within the Republican Party. There are those in the party that think

life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before. They're just overjoyed with a big senior Republican introducing the idea of a national ban into the political debate for the midterms. They are digging a hole and they just keep digging it. My inbox was starting to fill up with attacks from Democratic campaigns who were pointing to their opponents in Senate and House and governor's races and saying, look, if you elect one of these Republicans,

they will be an automatic vote for this kind of a national ban. And at first, Republicans don't quite know what to do. There's some silence from some campaigns. Other candidates like Blake Masters, who's running for Senate in Arizona, says that he supports a 15-week ban. But his spokesman tweets, why, why, why, why, why, indicating that he's deeply concerned about the political ramifications of this plan. It seems almost like people just did not see this coming. And that soon escalates to full-scale freakout, where you have Republican strategists just coming out and saying, this is a terrible idea.

You have Mitch McConnell, who's, of of course the minority leader, the head of Republicans in the Senate, giving a classic freeze out for him. Lindsey Graham has his 15 week abortion ban. If you take the Senate, will you put this on the floor of the Senate for a vote or will you commit to leaving this issue entirely to the states? Well, with regard to his bill, you'll have to ask him about it. In terms of scheduling, I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level. So Republicans really don't know what to do. And if anything, it further exposes the kind of divides that we've seen in this post-Roe era from the party. But Lisa, what's confusing about that is,

Graham crafted a piece of legislation that he believed was poll-tested, broadly appealing to many Americans, that's why he picked 15 weeks, and yet Republicans are having this full-fledged freakout. So why is that? Why are they not seeing what he's seeing in this proposal? Well, essentially what Graham is asking his party and the country to do is have another national debate about abortion after a really tumultuous summer on the issue. And it's not that most Republicans would necessarily oppose a 15-week national ban. In fact, most are broadly

supportive of such a policy. It's just not a conversation they want to have right now Republicans would necessarily oppose a 15-week national ban. In fact, most are broadly supportive of such a policy. It's just not a conversation they want to have right now when they're running for re-election and the party is within shooting distance of capturing control of the House and possibly the Senate too. They would much rather talk about issues that they find more favorable to them. Things like cost of living, public safety, inflation, things where they think the Democrats are weaker. Right. Gas prices, not a 15-week ban on abortion. Right. Gas prices, not rape and incest.

So Graham kind of went rogue here, it would seem, and it backfired within his own party. But Lisa, let's pretend for just a moment that Republicans did embrace his plan, that they coalesced around it. Could it have protected the party in the way Graham envisioned by putting this issue out there, forcing Democrats to say whether they supported 15-week bans or not? I mean, how might that have played out if the whole party decided to push this together? Okay, so let's play it out, right? You could have someone like Blake Masters, the Senate candidate in Arizona. He would have something to point to that his party embraced, that he knows is popular with a fair number of voters. And then what he could do is turn the tables and cast his opponent as extreme on this. You know, I think in this dream scenario, Mark Kelly, who's running in that race, would be asked

all the time what limits he would support. He would have to answer these difficult questions about limits and exceptions and how far the policy should go. Right. But of course, that's not what happened. That's kind of a counterfactual because the party has rejected Graham's plan. And what seems so interesting and surprising, Lisa, about the conversation we're having is that Republicans very much seem to want to adopt the policy of just running away from this issue. And now Lindsey Graham has made that very difficult for them. Right. That's the deep irony of this whole situation. This not only reminds voters that abortion is out there, but now the Republicans are going to be asked all the time whether they support 15 weeks. If not, how many weeks do they support and how do they feel about

this specific proposal? So, you know, to give Senator Graham a little credit here, the reality is Republicans can't run away. The ruling ushered in a titanic shift in American life, and it's something that people want to talk about, and they're going to continue to want to talk about it right up until Election Day and probably for years to come. So this is an issue that the party is going to have to grapple with. It's just not an issue that they want to grapple with right now, a couple weeks before the midterms. Right. What you're really saying is that Lindsey Graham may be ahead of his time. Yeah, or his timing is extraordinarily bad.

Well, Lisa, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. In an interview on Wednesday with ABC News, Senator Graham dismissed the criticism from his Republican colleagues and defended his proposed abortion ban, saying that he believed that eventually the entire country would embrace it. My proposal, he said, over time, will be supported by the public at large. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

In the latest defeat for a moderate Republican, Don Bulldog, a retired Army general who denies that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, has captured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. The race was called on Wednesday, with Bulduk holding a lead of more than 1,500 votes over Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire State Senate. Hampshire State Senate. Bulduk's victory is a setback for national Republicans, who poured millions of dollars into Morse's campaign and fear that Bulduk is too extreme to defeat his Democratic rival, Senator Maggie Hassan, in this fall's general election. And on Wednesday, in an elaborate procession, the body of Queen Elizabeth was taken by horse-drawn carriage

from Buckingham Palace to London's Westminster Hall, where thousands began paying tribute to her as she lay in state. as she lay in state. During the procession, the queen's body and her crown were accompanied by her son, King Charles III, and two of her grandchildren, Prince William and his brother Harry. Prince William, and his brother Harry. Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Luke Vanderplug, and Aasla Chaturvedi.

It was edited by Patricia Willans, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Chelsea Daniel, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. Thank you.