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Speaking in Arizona on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump yet again doubled or tripled down on false claims that mothers are murdering babies after they are born in some states.
The former president made the remark even after being humiliatingly fact-checked during Tuesday’s presidential debate about the very topic in front of an audience of more than 67 million people.
He told the rally of his supporters in Tucson: “Kamala Harris said no state allows abortion in the ninth month, which is a complete and total lie — they do, they do. And even after birth in some cases.”
Trump continued, in reference to a policy proposal laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto: “She claimed I want to monitor women’s pregnancies, I don’t want to do that. It’s a total lie. I don’t want to do that. Women, I won’t be following you around to the hospital.”
At the ABC News debate, he said: “[Democrats] have abortion in the ninth month.”
“The previous governor of West Virginia” said the state would “decide what to do with the baby” after it was born, he continued.
“In other words, we’ll execute the baby,” Trump claimed.
ABC News moderator Linsey Davis quickly fact-checked the Republican nominee: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
Trump’s claim is one that anti-abortion activists have launched before. His assertion originates from a quote taken out of context from former Virginia governor Ralph Northam in 2019 — definitely not West Virginia as Trump said.
Northam was giving a hypothetical example of what could happen if a pregnant person whose fetus was not viable requested an abortion while in labor.
Anti-abortion activists have used the so-called concept of “after-birth abortions” to paint loose abortion laws as radical. But there is no state where a baby can be legally killed after birth.
Harris reiterated to the former president that his assertion was false and “insulting to the women of America.”
During his rambling stump speech in Arizona, Trump lashed out at ABC’s Davis and her co-moderator David Muir claiming he was unfairly treated and that they were biased toward Harris for fact-checking his lies.
