When a small contingent of Republicans blocked President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful" reconciliation bill on taxes, energy, and the border from including the right's long-sought elimination of funding for Planned Parenthood, Trump had no idea this was going on — until a reporter brought it to his attention on Wednesday afternoon.
After National Review reporter Audrey Fahlberg asked Trump to comment on the likely removal of Planned Parenthood cuts from the bill, the president replied, "I don't know yet. I have to see because you just told me that for the first time, we'll work something out."
Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, which has long been reviled by GOP hardliners for providing abortion care but which also provides a range of other critical services, including prenatal and STI testing and cancer screenings, has long been a goal of GOP activists, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) himself.
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But this week, a number of GOP lawmakers in vulnerable districts told leadership they can't support such cuts in the final bill, including Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Jen Kiggans (R-VA).
Trump, for his part, though he expressed pro-choice views earlier in his political career, appointed the deciding Supreme Court justices who terminated the federal-level right to abortion care, and has joined in with Republicans trying to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, unilaterally freezing family planning funds for the medical provider by executive action.
He also vowed that his administration would "look into" whether Planned Parenthood is harvesting and selling infant organs, a long-debunked conspiracy theory promoted a decade ago in a deceptively edited undercover video from the right-wing group Center for Medical Progress.
