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Vice President Kamala Harris wrongly claimed that former President Donald Trump was talking about “reproductive freedom” when he said that he will “protect” women “whether the women like it or not.” Trump was talking about illegal immigration — but, in doing so, he made his own unsupported claims about criminals from prisons and “insane asylums” being “imported” into the country.
In Reno, Nevada, on Oct. 31, Harris highlighted Trump’s quote, which he had said the day before. Here’s how she described it:
Harris, Reno, Nevada, Oct. 31: And on the issue of freedom, listen, Donald Trump’s not done. Did anybody hear what he had to say just yesterday? And I’ll tell you, it was outrageous.
So, he said on the issue of freedom of choice — reproductive freedom — he said that he will do what he wants. Because, quote, he — this is his perspective, he will do it “whether the women like it or not.” “Whether the women like it or not.”
Trump wasn’t speaking about reproductive rights when he said that — not at all. Instead, he was talking about illegal immigration.
In his lead-up to the well-publicized quote, Trump claimed that Harris had “eradicated our sovereign border and unleashed an army of migrant gangs,” which, he said, were “waging a campaign of violence and terror against our citizens like we’ve never suffered before.” The border hasn’t been “eradicated.” Millions have been apprehended trying to cross the border illegally during the Biden administration, and apprehensions have been lower in July, August and September than in the last three months under Trump’s administration, after President Joe Biden implemented emergency policies to restrict asylum eligibility.
There have been some high-profile crimes committed by immigrants who are in the country illegally, but there’s no evidence of a wave of what Trump has called “migrant crime” in the existing data, experts have said. Violent crime overall, and notably murders, also has declined over Biden’s term.
Trump went on to make a version of his frequent, baseless claim that other countries are sending prisoners and people in mental institutions to the U.S. He claimed that Harris “has imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, from insane asylums, and mental institutions all over the world, from Venezuela to the Congo, including savage criminals who assault, rape, and murder our women and girls.”
Immigration experts, and criminal justice experts in Venezuela, have told us there’s no evidence for Trump’s talking point, and his campaign hasn’t backed it up.
Trump then said his staff had told him not to say that he would protect women.
Trump, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Oct. 30: And my people told me — about four weeks ago, I would say, “No, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women.” “Sir, please don’t say that.”
“Why?” They said, “We think it’s, we think it’s very inappropriate for you to say.” I said, “Why? I’m president. I want to protect the women of our country.” They said — they said, “Sir, I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say.” I pay these guys a lot of money. Can you believe it? And I said, “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them. I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things.”
In his speech, he did not mention abortion rights.
In her remarks, Harris went on to make some outdated and unsupported claims about Trump’s stances on reproductive issues.
She said: “And this is not the first time he has told us he does not believe women should have authority or agency over their own bodies. This is the same person who said that women should be punished for their choices.” In 2016, Trump said that there should be “some form of punishment” for women who violate abortion bans, but he retracted the statement the same day, saying doctors performing abortions should be held responsible, not women. This year, he said it would be up to states to decide if women should be prosecuted for violating state abortion laws.
Harris also cited Project 2025. “And we know that what he has planned includes a national abortion ban, restricting access to birth control, putting IVF treatments at risk, and forcing states to monitor women’s pregnancies. You don’t have to take my word for it. Google Project 2025.”
Some, not all, of that matches what’s in Project 2025, but Trump’s stated positions differ from what Harris said.
Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation, is a playbook for a conservative administration. Some of the authors are former Trump Cabinet officials, but Trump has tried to distance himself from the document.
Of course, we don’t know what Trump will do in the future, but as we’ve written, Trump during this campaign has said he won’t sign a national abortion ban, a change from his position in 2016, when Trump backed a federal abortion ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He says he’s against restrictions on birth control, and he supports IVF, or in vitro fertilization. Trump has said it’s up to states to decide if they want to monitor women’s pregnancies.
Project 2025 supports further curtailing abortion access, including preventing abortion pills from being mailed. It calls for limiting insurance coverage of an emergency contraceptive, not restrictions on typical birth control more broadly. It doesn’t comment on IVF, but appears to support fetal “personhood” laws, which say that embryos should have the same rights as people. That could affect IVF, because leftover embryos from the fertility treatment are often discarded. Finally, Project 2025 calls for reporting all miscarriages and abortions but doesn’t call for monitoring all pregnancies, as we’ve explained.
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