CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre whether President Joe Biden was “setting himself up for failure” by placing so much weight on abortion.
Blitzer referenced the president’s recent comments promising legislation that would codify a federal right to abortion — ahead of a midterm election that could easily cost him the majorities in both the House and the Senate, which he would need if he hoped to pass such legislation.
WATCH:
"The President believes that we should treat women with compassion and dignity" – @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre tells CNN's @wolfblitzer that @POTUS will "continue to fight" to protect abortion rights for women and work to codify Roe v. Wade: pic.twitter.com/OBECkfYXbb
— CNN (@CNN) October 18, 2022
“Tonight President Biden is making it clearer than ever that he’s counting on the issue of abortion rights for women to bolster Democratic candidates as the high-stakes midterm election gets closer and closer,” Blitzer began, introducing Jean-Pierre as his guest for the segment.
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“As you know, for President Biden to make good on his pledge to codify Roe, Democrats would have to keep the House majority, pick up Senate seats, and eventually change the filibuster rule as well,” Blitzer continued, turning the direct question to Jean-Pierre: “That’s a very tall order. Is the president setting himself up, potentially, for failure?”
Jean-Pierre deflected on the question about the midterms, citing the Hatch Act as the reason she couldn’t get into the politics of the situation. She then pivoted back to abortion, arguing that Biden was only weighing in on the issue because Republicans were putting “women’s health at risk” and “criminalizing doctors.”
“Look, what you heard from the president is his continuous fight to fight for millions of women across the country when we saw what the Supreme Court did in this unconscionable decision to overturn Roe. It put millions of women’s lives at risk,” she said.
“Here’s what’s at stake, Wolf, and this is why this is so important, and this is why you will continue to hear from this president on this issue, and we have, is that we’re seeing these draconian laws across the country in — by Republicans that are putting forth laws that, again, is going to put women’s health at risk, but also criminalizing doctors for doing their jobs,” Jean-Pierre continued.
Recent polling indicates that more Americans are concerned about the economy than they are about abortion rights, however. And the latest predictive maps at RealClearPolitics show Republicans taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate after November’s midterm.