New Pro-Trump PAC Insanely Claims That RBG Was Also Anti-Abortion

I was fully prepared for some cynical nonsense in the final days leading up to the election, but nothing could have prepared me for Donald Trump’s last, infuriating push to distort his anti-abortion position for political gain. On October 16, the deadline for new super PACs to form before Election Day, a pro-Trump PAC called RBG PAC filed its FEC paperwork, and the group launched its first ads on Friday as part of a roughly $20 million ad buy, according to the New York Times. The core message of the PAC’s ads? That Trump—who’s bragged about overturning Roe v.Wade—and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had the same position on abortion, which LOL. And, after watching the ads, I… honestly feel sick!

In one of the ads, a suburban white woman in a pastel sweater says she’s never voted for Trump before, but under his presidency, “Life was a lot better.” She continues, “I trust him on the economy and keeping us safe. … Freedom to choose is also important to me, and there’s been a lot of talk on where he stands. But he’s been clear: He does not support a federal abortion ban. Trump does support reasonable exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. His position is my position.” 

The ad then cuts to audio of Trump declaring that he doesn’t support a “federal abortion ban.” Of course, ask him and JD Vance if they support a “national minimum standard” or “reasonable federal restrictions,” and they might sing a different tune. That, and it doesn’t matter if Congress sends Trump a national ban or not—his top advisers and Heritage Foundation friends drew up a step-by-step plan for him to wield the office of the presidency to ban abortion using the Comstock Act of 1973, famously called Project 2025. 

President Trump has been clear: He does not support a federal abortion ban.

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“His position is my position. And that’s why I’m with Trump.” pic.twitter.com/Vaxrpz3Md2

— RBG PAC (@RBG_PAC) October 25, 2024

The claims on the PAC’s website get even worse. “Why did Ruth Bader Ginsburg agree with Donald Trump’s position on abortion? Because RBG believed that the federal government shouldn’t dictate our abortion laws. Donald Trump also does not support a federal ban on abortion. On this issue, great minds think alike.” Their main message is that Trump and Justice Ginsburg both agreed abortion should be left up to the states, but RBG was obviously a strong proponent of a federal right to abortion. She criticized Roe not because she supported abortion being left to the states, but because she feared a court ruling wouldn’t be enough to protect a right to abortion, and that it would only galvanize the anti-abortion movement while leaving our most fundamental freedoms vulnerable to be overturned. And what do you know—she was right. 

It’s not clear who’s funding the PAC, but the NYT reported that all the paperwork was signed by May Mailman, the director of the conservative Independent Women’s Law Center who previously worked in Trump’s White House. Ginsburg’s family was quick to call bullshit.

“The RBG PAC has no connection to the Ginsburg family and is an affront to my late grandmother’s legacy,” Clara Spera, Ginsburg’s granddaughter and a reproductive rights attorney, said in the statement. “The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling.” Spera stressed that her grandmother “was a champion for the equality of women and specifically tied the right to abortion to women’s freedom and ability to participate in society,” while “Donald Trump gloats about his part in overturning Roe. He is a direct threat to reproductive liberty and equality.”

In 2016, RBG also famously told the Times how nervous she was about the prospect of a Trump presidency. “I can’t imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president,” she said. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.” Crucially, part of what allowed Trump to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court was Ginsburg’s controversial decision to not retire during the Obama era. Nonetheless, it’s obvious where she stood on both Trump and abortion. After Ginsburg’s death in 2020, Spera said her grandmother’s dying wish was for the winner of the 2020 election to pick her replacement. Still, Trump rushed through Amy Coney Barrett, an anti-abortion extremist who voted to overturn Roe two years later. 

In a press release shared with Jezebel, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL), called RBG PAC “a calculated, shameless, last-minute attempt to lie to voters about Trump’s stance on abortion—one of the most salient issues of this election.” The organization’s president, Mini Timmaraju, said RBG PAC is “incredibly insulting and underscores how concerned the GOP is about their record on abortion. And they should be.”

Over the last several months, faced with the deep electoral unpopularity of state abortion bans, Trump has been trying to whitewash his extreme anti-abortion record and frame himself as a moderate. But his actions as president speak louder than his spin: He stacked the judiciary with anti-abortion extremists and attacked critical funding for reproductive care. On the campaign trail, he’s previously suggested there should be restrictions on birth control and encouraged states to track people’s pregnancies to enforce abortion bans. Still, Trump has somehow managed to say with a straight face that he’ll be women’s “protector,” and under his presidency, our lives will be so great that we’ll “no longer think about abortion.” 

The RBG PAC is a cumulation of Trump’s recent bullshit on this issue, as his entire party attempts to run from the electoral consequences of their own policies. And the terrifying reality is that, with the race this close and political media literacy seemingly at an all-time low, it could work.