I've spent a good bit of time thinking about and talking about in the last
day or two the Republican platform, the new Republican platform, and it's a
massive disappointment. It's a massive disappointment in a lot of ways. And I'm
trying to sort out whether I'm overreacting, and I'm wanting to look at the
different arguments for whether or not I am overreacting. And the chief thing that,
you know, I don't want this to become too much, you know,
right to life radio, But the chief concern I have with the new
Republican Party platform is the gutting of language regarding abortion policy. Now, let
me just let me sort of explain what has happened for those of you who
haven't been following it. The news cycle has just been dominated completely by Biden
his sinility should he jump out of the race. I feel like I'm the
only the only Republicans in America who are upset right now are pro lifers.
Pro lifers who've been following what's been going on with this platform debate. So
the Republican Party platform. Both political parties every four years have their convention,
and at the Republican and Democrat conventions, One of the things they do is
they have a platform for the party that is enacted, and a platform is
a restatement, a long restatement of what that party believes. It's sort of
a summary of we the Democratic Party believe in blahlah bah bah bah blah blah
bah buph And it has both broad thematic principles as well as in this time
and place and circumstance, you know, what are the priorities for the Democratic
Party in the twenty twenty four So it has both specific policy proposals and things
that the party supports and endorses, as well as long term goals, short
term goals, long term goals, long term principles. Now, with the
Republican Party, the last normal platform it produced was twenty sixteen. Twenty twenty,
they didn't produce a platform Allegedly COVID made it so logistically difficult for the
Republican convention participants and delegates that they couldn't really do their normal platform drafting process,
and so they just didn't have a platform in twenty twenty, which I
think is not good. I think for any organization you have to at a
certain point take a step back and restate who are we what it is that
we believe, what are the guiding principles that should propel us forward. I
think any organization needs to do that, and I think it's a very healthy
thing for the Republican Party that every four years they have a restatement what does
it mean to be a Republican. This is a document that talks about that.
This is a document that talks about what it means to be a Republican
in broad terms as well as the short term concerns of what are the issues
that the country is facing in the year twenty twenty four. Now, the
last republic normal Republican platform, as i'lse call it, was in twenty sixteen,
and that document was sixty six pages long. I've got the pdf.
It's a sixty six page long pdf, and that it probably includes the cover,
so you know, give or take, it's about sixty four to sixty
three pages long. But that's a long document, and it has again a
lot of bedrock principles, but also it had a lot of stuff relating to
what the country was facing in twenty sixteen and Republican Party priorities in twenty sixteen.
It had specific policy proposals as well as big picture stuff. Now,
I think that's important. Other smart political people that I read and respect thinks
that the platform is not as important. They think that the platform is something
that nobody really reads after it gets enacted at the Republican or Democrat convention.
It's like it's a binding contract. It's not like there's a penalty that Susan
Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the two most liberal Republican senators, vote against stuff
that's in the platform all the time and don't suffer any existential consequences as a
result. They don't burst into flames, their GOP membership doesn't get revoked if
they vote against it. And a lot of people think, well, it's
this sort of clumsy thing that commits you to things that maybe the exigencies of
time will result in you being embarrassed. It can become actually political baggage for
a campaign, So you know why insist on it? And is it also
just a thing of it it's a coalition building thing. Every four years I've
remembered, going back as far as I can remember, pro lifers saying,
well, the pro lifers are working hard to ensure that pro life planks remain
in the Republican Party platform, and thus the platform became almost this kind of
like coalition building exercise. The pro lifers get their, you know, a
couple of paragraphs here, and the libertarian leaning economic guys they get their pages
over here using those words specifically, pro lifers got a paragraph, libertarian economic
type Scott pages and pages pages, and so there's some thought that it is
that really important, and clearly that mindset has animated the Trump team. The
Trump team, the Trump team that is running affairs at the RNC, and
the Republican Convention folks, the Republican National Committee folks are all one hundred percent
Trump acolytes. Trump has completely taken over the party apparatus in a way he
did not he had not yet accomplished in twenty sixteen. Around this time in
twenty sixteen, the RNC, the Republican Convention folks, they were not Trump
acolytes, and so they produced a twenty sixteen platform that didn't look very trumpy.
Well, in twenty twenty four the drafting committee for the platform has already
met and they have produced a draft Republican platform which will be subject to a
sort of formal vote at on the floor of the Republican Convention with all the
delegates, which is basically more or less a ceremonial vote. And this new
Republican platform for twenty twenty four is I think woefully inadequate. It's only fifteen
pages long. Again, the last Republican platform we had was from twenty sixteen,
and it was sixty six pages long. This thing is fifteen pages long.
And one of the chief things that I think is significant about it is
one eliminating any mention of traditional Republican positions on gay marriage. And two,
most significantly for me, and what I want to spend some time discussing is
gutting any language about the topic of abortion, just gutting it. The Republican
platform in twenty sixteen reiterated it did what a platform is supposed to do.
It reiterates principles we believe in, as well as specific policies to follow.
On the principal side, the twenty sixteen platform was very clear saying that every
human being from the moment of conception has a right to life, and it
gave specific policies. The president, if he's elected, will enact A Republican
president, if elected, will enact that Mexico City policy to cut off federal
funding for abortion overseas. The party supports the High Amendment, which is the
writer that gets attached to the budget every year, to cut off direct federal
funding for abortion through Medicaid, another federal healthcare program. We will oppose federal
funding for fetal tissue using fetal tissue derived from aboarded fetuses. We will block
funding for abortion providers via such vehicles as Title six. We support the appointment
of conservative judges. You know, these are the kinds of things we're looking
for in judges. So you had general principles, we believe in the right
to life. You had specific policy proposals, but you also had aspirational policy
proposals that you know you're not going to get done in the next four years,
but is a thing that you would ideally like to see in an ideal
world. The Republican platform since nineteen seventy six included support for amending the Constitution
in order to protect all unborn children and overturning Rew Wade, both of which
were in the Republican platform consistently every four years from nineteen seventy six onward,
and both of which seemed like complete pipe dreams. For all that time.
But guess what one of those two pipe dreams happened. We did overturn Roe
v. Wade in twenty twenty two. The messaging coming from the Trump camp,
from intellectuals in the Trump sphere, officials in the Trump's sphere, and
from Trump himself in certain respects has basically been to say abortion is not popular.
We don't want to discuss it at all during the campaign because we want
to win, and we are not even going to commit publicly to any position
that is supportive of restrictions on abortion. And thus the twenty twenty four Republican
Platform, which does not even say anything about what the Republican Party viewpoint is
about abortion as such. Is abortion good? Is abortion bad? Do the
unborn have a right to life? We have left it blank. All the
Republican platform says is that states should be able to decide should be able to
decide for themselves what they think abortion should be. It should be left up
to a vote of the people, not even giving guidance that, you know,
the National Republican Party supports state level efforts to preserve the right to life,
but thinks that this fight is best left for the states. Nothing there's
nothing like that. Here's all it says, we proudly stand for families and
life, capital l We believe that the fourteenth of Men into the Constitution of
the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life, life, or
liberty without due process, and that the states are there for free to pass
laws protecting those rights. That it's the biggest world's biggest non sequitor. If
the Fourteenth Amendment applies to unborn children, then it's not something that's empowering states
to do anything. The Fourteenth Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War,
says that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property without due process. It is a federal constitutional restriction on state misconduct.
It's not something that empowers states to do anything. Okay, remember it's passed
after the Civil War. What it's basically, it's this. This is the
same amendment that made newly freed slaves into citizens. It says, hey,
you can't deprive anyone of life, execute them liberty, put them in jail
or property, seize their stuff without due process of law, without like a
fair trial to actually convict someone of something before you throw them in jail.
Or execute them. So the idea there is the federal government. And by
the way, the fourteenth Amendment was one of the three amendments thirteen, fourteen,
and fifteen that Southern states had to ratify in order to come back into
the Union. So what this was is the federal government saying, hey,
this is a federal restriction against U states engaging in misconduct. States were always
allowed to pass laws to protect life. They were always allowed to do so,
they did so before the fourteen Amendment. After the fourteen Amendment, you
don't need the fourteenth Amendment for a state to pass laws to restrict life.
This is the biggest mean, it's totally meaningless. After fifty one years,
this new twenty twenty four platform continues because of us. That power for states
to pass laws to restrict abortion has been given to the states and to a
vote of the people. That's also silly. Not every state has lawmaking processes
premise through direct popular votes. Some states do, but not every state.
Not every state has a ballot initiative system like California does. We will oppose
late term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to
birth control, and IVF, but never in there does it say it says
we will oppose late term abortion. Does the National Republican Party have any principled
belief regarding abortion before it's late to It doesn't seem to anymore. All it
says is that states can restrict it if they want, without even giving a
directive of we think states should do X. But beyond the sort of incoherent
language about what the party believes and gutting the normal traditional pro life language from
the Republican platform, there's nothing about the specifics. When we return, I
want to pop this balloon that abortion is a state's issue. Abortion is a
state's issue. It is, but it isn't. Next on the John Jerardi
Show, I'm discussing the new twenty twenty four Republican Party platform, which I
think is a woefully inadequate instrument. It's a fifteen page long document, unlike
the sixty six page long document, for example, from twenty sixteen, and
it's really gutted the language that the Republican Party has traditionally upheld with regards to
what it believes about abortion. Now, as I said, there's almost nothing
in this new document saying what does the Republican Party actually think about abortion other
than late term abortion, which it does say we will oppose late term abortion.
But one of the principle that's underlying this and the messaging we're getting from
Trump and from all these states is that no abortion is a state's issue,
and so the federal government's not going to pursue policies to restrict abortion. And
I think a lot of people hear that, and it's an easy thing to
sort of repeat. If you're inclined to defend Trump, if you're inclined to
like Trump, you're gonna be able. You're going to sort of say,
well, well, Trump's just saying that it's a state's issue now, and
that's right. It's a state's issue. Now. That's what Row does.
It makes it a state's issue. It's a state's issue. It's a state's
issue. So two things to think about. One, what the Supreme Court
did was simply turn abortion over to normal lawmaking processes. What Roe and its
successor, case Parenthood versus Casey did was basically say, the Constitution mandates that
abortion has to be legal. Therefore, no legislative body, whether it's state
legislatures or Congress, can make laws to restrict abortion as such or ban abortion
as such. For you know, let's say you want to ban abortion after
the first trimester, Well you could not do that, whether that was at
the level of Congress or at the level of the states. Overturning Row just
does not specifically only mean it can be handled at the level of the states.
If abortion in some way involves inter a commerce, or some other area
of activity that the Constitution allows Congress to regulate, then it can be handled
at the level of Congress. So no, overturning Roe v. Wade didn't
just make abortion quote a question for the states. Yes, states certainly can
regulate it, but there's very strong arguments that Congress can regulate it too.
Secondly, a lot of abortion policy is must be at the federal level,
and saying that abortion is a state issue now does not magically make it not.
So let me give you some examples. The Mexico City policy, which
Republican presidents always put in place and Democrat presidents always get rid of. It's
an answer to the question of will the federal government, in its foreign aid
fund foreign NGOs that perform abortions. We have to answer that question. We
give foreign aid to these countries. Will we give foreign aid to medical entities
that are offering abortions? That's a federal question. It's an executive level question.
The president decides it. Saying that well, abortions of States issue doesn't
answer that question. So okay, so President Trump is going to if he
does nothing about it, then federal money will keep going to foreign NGOs performing
abortions in Africa, in Africa and Asia and wherever do we want that?
I don't. Here's another federal question. Is medicaid at the federal level going
to cover and will your tax dollars pay for abortion through federal health and insurance
programs like medicaid. It's a federal question, it's not a state question,
and it has to do with abortion. So is Donald Trump going to push
for the High Amendment language to be included in any spending bill that he signs
when he's in when he's elected. You have to decide that it's a federal
question. You can't wish that into not being a federal question. You have
to answer the question, will medicaid cover abortion? Will the National Institutes of
Health do research using cells or tissue taken from aborted fetuses? Or aborted embryos,
millions and millions of your taxpayer dollars. We have to decide. It's
a federal question. You can't wish that into being a state question. Will
Title six go to abortion providers in violation of the clear language of Title six,
which says, don't give this money to abortion providers. It was a
federal program to fund family planning operations that Nixon signed, but the money has
been going to abortion providers consistently almost the entire history of Title six. Trump
cut off that funding to abortion providers in his first term. Will it be
cut off to abortion providers in a second term. I don't know. It's
a federal question. It's not a state question. You can't wish Title six
into becoming a state program. It's not a state program. It's a federal
program. We have to decide where that money's gonna go. And most importantly,
the abortion pill miff A pristone again, this is a pill. This
is not the morning after pill. This is a pill to bring about an
abortion up to ten weeks into a pregnancy. It's the most common method of
abortion in the country today, and its popularity has exploded since twenty sixteen.
And again since twenty twenty one, when Obama and Biden loosened up the health
and safety regulations around it and made it wildly more accessible. Now you can
get an abortion pill abortion with that with just a telemedicine visit, and have
the pill mailed to your house. Thanks to President Biden. Will A Donald
Trump led a Donald Trump appointed head of the FDA push to re restrict miphi
pristone, which is the single biggest driver in the of abortion in the nation.
Since Biden loosened up restrictions allowed the abortion pill to be shipped through the
mail, we have had one hundred thousand more abortions per year today than we
had in twenty twenty one, hundred thousand more abortions per year, and they're
all pill abortions. It's clear that the increase is purely from pill abortions.
So will Biden have the FDA regulated It's a federal question. It's not a
state question whether the FDA approves or doesn't approve a drug, and it's there's
a hugely solid argument that the FDA approval for Miffi pristine was unlawfully done.
In two thousand, President Clinton's FDA used an expedited approval process, which is
only to be used for diseases to cure serious illnesses. The abortion pill does
not cure any illness. It ends a pregnancy. Pregnancies are not illnesses.
There's a strong argument that its approval was unlawful. Will Donald Trump roll it
back. It's a federal question. It's not a state question. So if
you're repeating this line that, well, abortion it should just be left to
the states, maybe it should, but it isn't. It's a federal question,
and no amount of wishing will make it not a federal question. A
president and a national political party has to decide what it's going to do when
we return, whether this should make me leave the Republican Party. Next on
The John Girardi Show, I must confess I feel very weird right now as
a you know, I've been a registered Republican my whole life, and I've
been talking the whole first half of the show for those of you just joining
about the new Republican platform and how wildly disappointing I think it is, particularly
on the questions of life, but not not only on life, even on
questions of you know, judges. There's nothing the only thing. This new
Republican platform, which was voted on by sort of the Platform Committee, and
usually the way this process works is the Platform Committee drafts it, approves it,
and then it's sort of presented to all the delegates of the Republican Convention
for sort of a show vote where everyone just says, yeah, that's great,
they vote and approve it. It's so short. It's only fifteen pages,
as opposed to the last normal Republican platform we had in twenty sixteen was
sixty six pages long, and it gutted all the pro life language that there's
almost nothing. There's almost nothing indicating what the Republican Party actually thinks about abortion,
other than that states should be allowed to vote on it and saying that
late term abortion is bad. There's no specific policy questions that it addresses or
policy proposals that it promotes. There's no general principles that it affirms. Of
it. It vaguely says the Republican Party stands for Life with a capital L,
whatever that means. Does that mean you think that unborn children have a
right to life? It abandons a lot of long held things that have been
in the Republican platform, like supporting an Amendment to the Constitution to protect the
Lives of the unborn that's been in the Republican platform every four years since nineteen
seventy six, and it all seems to be done for the immediate political expediency
of right now that Donald Trump pulls better than Joe Biden on every single issue
except for abortion, and the Trump team recognizes that and are basically just like,
we just want to run as far away from this as possible and not
commit ourselves to anything. And then though we get lectured on, well,
you pro lifers aren't being pragmatic. Abortion should be left to the states anyway,
which infuriates me as if I'm some idiot not to understand that abortion is
left to the states when I know more about abortion policy than any of these
idiots saying this, and I recognize clearly and understand, No, there is
a ton of abortion policy that's handled at the federal level. It's handled,
it's completely within the control of the executive How can you ask me to vote
for someone who's not committing to all of the traditional things Republican presidents do with
regards to the abortion question, and who refuses to engage with stuff that's completely
within the president's control, such as, for example, regulating the abortion pill,
which I think is the most important social issue facing the country. Since
President Biden took office, the total number of abortions in America has jumped by
one hundred thousand per year, a hundred thousand per year. Why because of
his massive deregulation of the abortion pill. There are one hundred thousand more abortions
that happen in America today than were happening in the year twenty twenty. Because
President Biden allows the abortion pill through his FDA, allows the abortion pill to
be picked up at major pharmacies and shipped to people's houses through the mail.
So I'm standing here as a pro lifer wondering why President Trump is in the
debate saying he's not going to do anything about the abortion pill. Why JD
Vance, who's a very likely vice presidential pick, is out there saying he
supports access to the abortion pill, probably because they have some pollings saying that
it would be an unpopular position to want to restrict it. So with the
platform, so that let me get to my let me have this be uh
focused on me. This turn by the Republican Party on IVF and on abortion
has made me question more than anything else, whether I should still be a
Republican. It honestly has, and I feel absurd. I feel like Republicans
right now are for the most part exultant because it looks like they might have
a cake walk to the twenty twenty four residency. That there's pulling out there
indicating that if Biden continues to look this bad, and Biden is adamant that
he's staying in this race, if things continue to look this bad, Republicans
could pick up twenty seats in the House, they could take back the Senate,
they could have the White I mean, if you're a Republican right now,
this should be a time of exultation and giddy excitement. And I think
it's pro lifers who are the only ones who are like despondent right now,
because I just think the Trump team is so hyper fixated on this idea that
abortion is unpopular, that they're abortion policies, that conservative abortion policies are unpopular,
that they're just abandoning the field. And I to hear people say things
like, well, you got to win first in order to do these things,
but they're committing to not doing the end things that I care about,
or they're not committing to anything. I have heard no commitment from Trump yet
about well, what kind of Supreme Court justices are you going to pick this
time around? In twenty sixteen through twenty twenty, he had an ongoing list
of judges that he would have picked. It was a great thing. It
was a really innovative thing for a presidential candidate to do. Here's my actual
list. This is my short list of people I'd pick for the Supreme Court.
We haven't seen that the Republican platform has nothing about the character of the
judges that the Republican Party is going to try to pick, other than people
who quote support the rule of law, which is as laughably vague and generic
as you could possibly ask for. And I have no commitments for any of
the executive policies on abortion any I've none of that. And I recognize two
schools of thought with regards to the platform, because this platform debate has really
crystallized a lot of my fears and anger and concern and it's really leading me
to ask the question should I still be a Republican anymore? The platform.
One school of thought is having a long platform as was done in twenty sixteen
and in every Republican you know, presidential election cycle going back to time immemorial.
It's not a necessary thing to keep doing nowadays. It's an unnecessary exercise
to have a big, long platform that goes on and on and on and
on. You know, these things can be political liabilities. Nobody really reads
them anymore. It's not really that important that the only people who really care
about the platform are eggheads. It's just not I'm making a mount Gerardi,
You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Is kind of the sentiment
I'm getting, And I guess I have a very hard time accepting that any
organization has to, at least every couple of years take a step back and
look at the big picture and kind of define again who are we and what
are we doing and what is our purpose? The platform has always been it's
the occasion for doing that for the Democrats. Is the occasion for doing that
for the Republicans? What does it mean to be a Republican? What does
the Republican Party actually believe? I've advocated at times for the position that I
think it's im almost impossible to be a Democrat and to be a faithful Christian
who believes in the right to life. And how how have I been able
to argue that in the past. Well, I mean, unless you're just
going to accept that you are a very much a heretical democrat, you have
to be either a massively heretical Democrat or a massively heretical Christian. There's no
other way. You can't be an Orthodox Christian and an small letter o Orthodox.
You can't be an Orthodox Christian and an Orthodox Democrat because there and the
thing I would look at was the platform. What does the platform say?
You define what a party believes by its platform. It's not just a totally
useless exercise for eggheads. It is a genuine point of reference for what it
means to say I am a Republican. And the pro life plank was always
the thing that would allow me to say with any level of confidence that I
am a Republican. And if that's not there, and if I don't have
a clear commitment from this party that I've been a member of my whole voting
life, if I don't have a clear commitment from this party that that's what
they stand for, this issue that I think is so singularly important, then
what am I doing as a Republican When we return, I want to talk
about compromise and end goals in politics and how I think these things are getting
inverted. Next on the John Jerrardy Show. You pro lifers just don't understand
politics, You pro lifers, You just refuse to compromise. You have to
sort of sacrifice some things in order to win. You have to win first.
This is what I keep hearing from people when I'm critical of President Trump
conceding so much ground on the abortion issue, the Republican Party eliminating the pro
life planks from its platform, et cetera, et cetera, that this is
a You know, politics is the art of the possible, which is such
a short sighted view. No one thought overturning Robe Wade was possible for ages,
Should we have just abandoned our party planks all those years saying that we
want Rob Wade to be overturned. Nobody thought overturning Rovy Wade was possible until
it happened, So spare me. This politics is the art of the possible.
No higher level politics means understanding that politics can radically change and being willing
to aggressively pursue something as a committed, organized minority to get stuff done.
Because committed organized minorities always get stuff done. They often get stuff done in
improbably hugely improbable ways. Democrats never concede on their outlandish things they believe to
be ideals, because they know if you shoot for the stars, if you
shoot for the moon, maybe a land among the stars. You shoot for
a universal single payer healthcare, and you get Obamacare, an enormous victory,
an enormous ratchet that only goes one way, that will never be undone.
Now I am met with this critique that, no, we gotta win first,
we gotta win first. I am okay with conceding things I care less
about in order to get the things that I care about the most. That's
how I would view politics. I'm willing to concede on certain kinds of things
in order to attain certain other kinds of long term goals. But if you
are telling me, as a voter, we're gonna concede all of the issues
you care about now in election time in order to not accomplish the things you
care about, then why should I keep voting for you? Okay, if
the Republic if people are gonna tell me no, we need to concede the
pro life stuff in order to save the country. Abortion is the thing that's
destroying the country in my view. In my view, maybe not for yours,
but it's in mine. Do I care about other issues, Yes,
I care about immigration, I care about this, I care about that,
But fundamentally I care about all of it far less than I do the question
of life. And I think there are millions of Christian voters like me,
and I guess Trump needs to be very careful about alienating these people who are
part of his base. He needs every vote he can get, including mine,
and I feel like he could solve it with just a few commitments that
wouldn't be that politically damaging to them. So don't ask me to compromise when
you're also taking away the end goals that I really care about. That'll do
it for John Garrotiy show. See you next time on Power Talk.