MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Desperately Tries to Understand Trump’s Contraception Flip-Flop: ‘This Isn’t Complicated!’
Former President Donald Trump tried to blame Democrats for his own comments about “looking at” restrictions on contraception in his second term, and MSNBC’s Chris Jansing just wanted to understand what, exactly, happened here.
Trump was asked by Pittsburgh news anchor John Delano on Tuesday about the subject of restrictions on contraception, and responded, “Well, we’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly. And I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting. And I’d see — it’s another issue that’s very interesting. But you will, you will find it, I think, very smart. I think it’s a smart decision, but we’ll be releasing it very soon.”
Just hours after the Pittsburgh interview. Trump walked his comments back, saying, “I HAVE NEVER, AND WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL,” calling his own comments “a Democrat fabricated lie.”
Jansing wanted an explanation. Why would he take a position during an interview, a very clear one, and then almost immediately take the opposite position?
Guest Matthew Dowd, former chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, valiantly tried to help, but ultimately could not find a logical explanation:
Jansing: So Trump, who needs to appeal to suburban women, is backtracking. It was interesting this morning on Morning Joe, The New York Times Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller said she saw in his comments that he seemed tired. Maybe he was caught off-guard. Could it be that, or does he just use “We’re looking at that” as kind of a a rote, mechanical response to something he doesn’t know or hasn’t thought about?
Dowd: I think anytime you hear Donald Trump say “We are looking at,” that means he’s never looked at it and doesn’t understand the question and wants to move past it. I think, just use those as code words of “I’ve never looked at this and I don’t know how to answer the question, so I’m going to say his statement.” I mean, I think this —
Jansing: This isn’t complicated, as you know! “Should a woman have a right to use contraception” is not exactly Middle East policy.
Dowd: Well, yeah. For all of us on this panel, we would say that. But I think you don’t know what, Donald… You know, Donald Trump has this way of he always anticipates what’s coming. And then I think what he probably anticipated.. I don’t know, I mean, it’s hard to analyze this in any kind of psychological way to get any understanding of his brain.
But he probably thought it was a different question that came in his brain and then what came out of his mouth. So, and then, of course, in the immediate aftermath, he understood the problem. They understood the problem of this campaign position of saying, “We’re going to look at contraception and banning contraception.” It’s not an unnatural thing to come to the conclusion after what’s happened with Roe vs. Wade and other statements his supporters have made, a lot of the Christian nationalists and Republican supporters, that want to do away with all of this. So, it’s not a, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that this is what we look in that. But I don’t think Donald Trump has studied this, and that’s why he was caught in this situation.
Watch the video above via MSNBC.
