Trump tells anti-abortion activists at March for Life: 'I am fighting for you'

Close to the US Capitol where his impeachment trial was being held, Donald Trump rallied anti-abortion activists on Friday with the message: “They are coming after me because I am fighting for you.”

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Trump, who two decades ago declared himself “pro-choice in every respect”, became the first president to address in person the annual gathering in Washington known as the March for Life. He did so having just been impeached and in a presidential election year where his base is in part powered by the religious right.

His presence ensured it was hard to tell where the march ended and where a Trump rally began. Street vendors sold “Babies Lives Matter” T-shirts side by side with “Make America Great Again” and “Trump 2020: Keep America Great” caps. Trump badges and March for Life badges were cheek by jowl. One vendor pushed a cart with T-shirts that depicted the president urinating on a CNN logo.

In a crowd thousands strong, numerous people, including university and school students who had been bussed in, wore Trump regalia or carried red signs that said: “Most pro-life president ever.” One waved a giant blue flag that proclaimed: “Trump 2020. No more bullshit.”

The warm-up music, too, resembled a Trump campaign rally: the Rolling Stones’ Play with Fire, Tina Turner’s Simply the Best, and the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun. As ever, the president walked on stage to God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood and departed to the Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

Trump spoke on the National Mall, within view of the Capitol, where day after day Democrats are presenting damning evidence that he sought help from a foreign government to boost his chances of re-election, warranting his removal from office. But in a speech strewn with incendiary claims and downright lies, he sought to cement a crucial part of his electoral base.

The president said his administration has acted to protect religious liberty and preserve faith-based adoption and has confirmed 187 federal judges, “who apply the constitution as written”, including two supreme court justices.

“We are protecting pro-life students’ right to free speech on college campuses,” he said to applause, threatening: “And if universities want federal taxpayer dollars, then they must uphold your first amendment right to speak your mind. And if they don’t, they pay a very big financial penalty, which they will not be willing to pay.

“Sadly, the far left is actively working to erase our God-given rights, shut down faith-based charities, ban religious believers from the public square, and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life. They are coming after me because I am fighting for you and we are fighting for those who have no voice. And we will win because we know how to win.”

Supporters chanted: “Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!”

The president then went on the attack against Democrats for embracing “radical and extreme positions” on abortion over years, decades and “you could even say for centuries”. Trump claimed: “Nearly every top Democrat in Congress now supports taxpayer-funded abortion, all the way up until the moment of birth.”

It was a spurious assertion but the crowd booed.

Trump claimed: “Last year, lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb right up until delivery.”

It was a spurious assertion but the crowd booed.

Trump claimed: “And we love the Commonwealth of Virginia, but what is going on in Virginia? What is going on? The governor stated that he would execute a baby after birth.”

It was a spurious assertion but the crowd booed.

Trump has made the same wrong claim about Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, several times before. The Politifact website judged it false, noting: “Northam, a physician, never said he would sanction the execution of newborns. What he did say during a radio interview is that in rare, late-pregnancy cases when fetuses are nonviable, doctors deliver the baby, keep it comfortable, resuscitate it if the mother wishes, and then have a ‘discussion’ with the mother.”

None of this seemed to trouble organizers of the 47th March for Life, which billed itself as “the world’s biggest human rights rally” and declared a mission to “make abortion unthinkable”. On the contrary, many were evidently delighted by their star guest’s turn and despite the fact that polling has consistently revealed for decades widespread public support for abortion rights.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told the crowd: “I don’t think anything will surpass those wonderful remarks that we just heard.”

As the president spoke, a young boy sat on a steel fence chomping an apple and sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat. Nearby, a 17-year-old, who gave his name only as Lucian, wore a similar hat and said: “I’m very excited the president is here: the first time in 47 years. He’s done some good things, like tax cuts and being here, and some bad things. I would vote for him.”

Nancy Weber, 57, had set off from St Charles, Illinois, at 4pm on Thursday, driven for 15 hours and not slept. With her sons, Joseph, 21, and 19-year-old Jacob, she held up a giant sign that said: “Thank you President Trump.”

Weber explained: “He’s made the anniversary of Roe v Wade a day of celebrating life instead. We just love the way he is present on the pro-life issue.”

She dismissed the impeachment trial as “a hoax” and “ridiculous” and said she would vote for Trump again.

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But other attendees were less sure. Rebecca Jones, 53, a children’s storyteller from Seaford, Delaware, was holding a blue sign that said “Pro-life is pro-woman” and had the image of stork flying with a baby in a sling.

“On December 19, 1990, I had an abortion in England,” she explained. “It’s something I regret to this day. I shoved it into the recesses of everything and it came out in an ugly way. I suffered from it emotionally and physically. This is my first time here: I decided I’ve got to stand up and say something. I am pro-life because I know what death brought to my life.”

When she learned that Trump was coming to the march, Jones said, she thought: “Oh, please don’t turn the life movement into a political stomping ground.”

Jones voted for an independent candidate in 2016 and remains undecided about Trump this year. “I like that he’s pro-life. I don’t like that he twitters all the time. I wish he could be a little more restrained in how he deals with people.”