Dec 19, 2024
Senator: RFK Jr. Will Make It Harder To Get Abortion Pill
Sen. Josh Hawley said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will oblige President-elect Donald Trump if he supports reimposing restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.
- 8 minutes
Hawley, who met with RFK Jr Tuesday,
said the two hit a lot of topics,
including vaccines for children,
food regulations and abortion.
Let's listen.
He said to me.
He does not believe the United States.
These are his words,
can be the moral leader of the free world
[00:00:15]
and have abortion at this level.
He thinks it's a top priority
to get the number of abortions
down in the United States,
and that the number of babies are up.
It's very interesting.
Secondly, he said that he will absolutely
implement President Trump's pro-life
agenda without any question whatsoever.
[00:00:32]
Well, this is not good.
It looks as though HHS H.
HHS Secretary nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr
intends to go along with Republicans hard
line anti-choice policies, despite his
[00:00:47]
mixed history on the topic of abortion.
Now, at least, that's what he allegedly
told Senator Josh Hawley during
their meeting on The Hill this week.
So, according to Holley, RFK Jr vowed to
support efforts to reimpose restrictions
[00:01:06]
on the abortion pill mifepristone
if Trump asks him to do so.
Mifepristone.
Mifepristone is the first of a two drug
regimen used for medication abortions.
Now, last year, the Biden administration
actually removed some limitations on how
[00:01:24]
patients could get the drug, rather than
being forced to get the pill in person.
Biden's rule allowed mifepristone
to be sent out through the mail,
even in states that ban abortion.
Now, Holly is not a fan of that,
and I just want to stop and say there are
[00:01:40]
areas in which I agree with Josh Hawley.
And it's in regard
to the financial industry,
banks, junk fees, credit card companies.
I've given him a lot of credit in the past
for wanting to protect Americans
[00:01:55]
from predatory behavior
from these financial institutions.
He deserves credit on that, on this.
This is the kind of stuff I hate.
This is the kind of big government
nonsense where they're basically getting
involved in your personal decisions
about whether or not you are ready
to bring children into this world.
[00:02:11]
But here's what Holly has said.
He told reporters Wednesday he suggested
to Kennedy during a Tuesday meeting that
it would be a wise idea to return to the
rule under the last Trump administration,
which required in-person
dispensing of the drug.
Now, understand if that's the case,
obviously women living in states
[00:02:30]
that have effectively banned abortion
would have a much more difficult time
getting mifepristone.
We reviewed what the Biden administration
has done on this issue,
which is basically just to try and negate
anything that the state voters might do.
[00:02:46]
So we talked about that.
Kennedy acknowledged all of that, I think,
and seemed to understand it.
What do you mean?
The voters, if you look at the polling,
the majority of voters, and that includes
Republican voters, want to keep
abortion legal in the first trimester.
[00:03:01]
Okay, but it doesn't matter what the
voters want because in these red states,
especially in Florida, right?
So in Florida,
they had a ballot initiative in order
to amend their state's constitution
to protect reproductive rights.
A majority of Florida voters, I believe
about 56% voted in favor of that, but it
[00:03:21]
didn't meet the two thirds requirement.
In order to allow 60,
it needed to pass by 60%, I believe.
That's right. Yeah.
In order to pass.
And so the majority of voters in Florida
want it to be legal, but it doesn't matter
[00:03:37]
because it didn't meet that threshold.
And that's because the Republicans
in Florida know
that all their policies are unpopular.
That's why they moved the threshold
from 50 to 60 recently in the legislature,
because they know that if you have real
democracy, they're going to get outvoted.
And they were getting tired of getting
outvoted on the ballot measures.
[00:03:53]
They're like, oh, there's these people.
I mean, we've tricked them
into voting for Republicans.
But when they do, when we do it,
issue by issue, minimum wage,
letting felons vote again, they keep
voting for the popular positions.
We don't want the popular positions.
We want our positions.
[00:04:09]
Right.
So that's why they moved it up to 60.
So on this issue guys.
So sometimes MAGA guys online
or whatever will say,
but Jake, you're so anti-establishment.
And Kamala Harris
was so pro-establishment.
[00:04:24]
She is the establishment.
So why did you vote for her?
Well, for because of reasons like this,
I don't agree with your policies.
So now it's going to be much harder to get
this drug very, very likely in the country
because elections have consequences.
So I don't want abortion
to be harder to get.
[00:04:40]
I don't want people dying
because they couldn't get an abortion.
I don't want their lives being changed
because the tyrannical government
told them what to do with their bodies.
So, I mean, the mifepristone is something
that's almost certainly going to happen.
Mexico City policy happens
under every Republican.
So that means, you know,
we could explain that more in a second,
[00:04:57]
but that's going to get taken away.
So groups that are helping
in other countries can't promote abortion
in any way, shape or form.
And then.
But how much are they going to eat
into abortion rights?
We don't know.
We're going to find out soon.
And Kennedy being pro-choice
is irrelevant.
[00:05:13]
Trump's the president.
So Josh Hawley also says I think
he's going to follow Trump's lead,
meaning RFK Jr. Will follow
Trump's lead, which is fine.
I'd be disappointed if the president
doesn't re-impose these basic parameters
on mifepristone
that existed up until the last 18 months.
[00:05:31]
Now, Trump has seen how much of
a political liability restricting abortion
has been for the Republican Party.
So I don't know
what Trump is likely to do.
And so he suggested in a recent interview
that he didn't have any plans
[00:05:46]
to reimpose limitations to mifepristone.
But he did have some caveats. Take a look.
More than half of abortions
in this country are medication abortions.
Will you restrict the availability
of abortion pills when you're in office?
Probably.
[00:06:02]
I'll probably stay with exactly what I've
been saying for the last two years.
- And the answer is no.
- You commit to that.
Well, I commit I mean, are things.
Do things change?
I think they change.
I hate to go on shows like Joe Biden.
I'm not going to give my son a pardon.
I will not,
under any circumstances give him a pardon.
[00:06:20]
I watched this and I always knew
he was going to give him a pardon,
and so did I don't like putting myself
in a position like that.
So things do change, but I don't
think it's going to change at all.
Look, I think you really wanted
to take some digs at Biden for reneging
[00:06:37]
on what he had committed to do, which was
avoiding the pardon of his own son.
But I don't.
But look, I don't know,
because Donald Trump
is a little bit of a wild card, right?
And it's not like he hasn't lied before.
So this is disturbing to say the least.
[00:06:53]
I don't know what's going
to end up happening.
All I know about Trump
is that he likes to be popular.
So restricting the abortion pill I don't
think is going to be a popular move.
We'll see what happens.
So this is where he's, you know,
not only going to have
[00:07:09]
to I don't know about compromise,
but at least negotiate with a portion
of his base and both in the Senate
and Congress overall and in the voters.
And I don't know which way
the negotiations are going to end.
So what I mean by that is
that the evangelical Christians used to be
[00:07:27]
the number one group within the Republican
Party, and they had enormous power.
They are now greatly diminished
in their power.
They're not totally gone.
Mike Huckabee is an evangelical Christian,
and he got ambassadorship to Israel.
That guy's a total loon.
And so there's a bunch of floating around,
but then there's guys like Holly
[00:07:44]
who are interestingly populist
in some economic direction,
but when it comes to social issues,
is much more hardcore evangelical.
I don't know if he himself is,
but he certainly his policies
are in that direction.
So does Trump feel pressured
to give them something so he doesn't lose
[00:08:02]
that portion of his base?
Or does he feel pressure
to not be unpopular, which this will,
you know, 70% of the country
basically wants this pill to be available.
So I it's hard to tell,
but my guess is that he'll draw the line.
As I said earlier on Mexico City policy,
getting rid of it as every Republican
[00:08:20]
president does and probably make it harder
to get mifepristone.
But do they then get
into a national ban 15 weeks?
- Six weeks?
- I don't think that's going to happen.
So that's probably
where the rubber hits the road,
and that is probably less likely.
But you never know.
And so this is where we are,
where there's an internal battle
[00:08:37]
within the Republican Party on
how much to push on this unpopular issue.
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[00:08:53]
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