Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) said in a recent interview that the abortion issue will cost Donald Trump the presidency, while noting he campaigned in 2016 on appointing pro-life judges.
The 2020 candidate told GirlBoss Radio a spate of pro-life laws passed in Republican-led states around the country were part of a campaign to take away women's civil rights.
"It's an all-out attack on women, so I think if this is a fight that President Trump wants to have with America's women, it's a fight he will have and it's a fight he's going to lose, because women are not going to stand for this," she said. "If he tries to take away our basic reproductive freedom, he will lose the presidency as well."
Gillibrand said it was part of a Republican effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, which she has said she would codify if elected president.
"President Trump promised he'd do it when he issued his 20 justices he might appoint that were OK-ed and researched by conservative think tanks," she said. "He was signaling, 'My intention is to overturn Roe v. Wade.' And that's what [Vice President Mike] Pence wants to do."
Trump did issue a list of 21 possible judicial nominees in 2016 he would appoint to the Supreme Court if elected president, and it was seen as giving him credibility with skeptical conservatives. One name on the list was Neil Gorsuch, and one of Trump's first acts after being inaugurated was to nominate him to fill the seat left by the death of Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017.
Kavanaugh added Gorsuch and Trump's other Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh "were lying" about respecting precedent, apparently predicting they would overturn Roe v. Wade. Liberal justices on the court voiced concern about "which cases the court will overrule next" last month, when the 5-4 conservative majority overturned a 40-year precedent on whether states had immunity from private lawsuits in courts from other states, according to the Washington Post.
"What's really outrageous is that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch promised that they would not overturn precedent or settled law, so I think we know they were lying now," Gillibrand said. "We kind of knew it then. Yeah. So it's disturbing, but it's something that we're going to have to fight back."