Florida Democrat Chair Nikki Fried speaks at a press conference involving Occupy Tally on April 4, 2023. Credit: Danielle J. Brown
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Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said that in selecting U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance as GOP vice president nominee, Donald Trump sent an unmistakable message about where he stands on abortion.
In a call with reporters Thursday, Fried referred to Vance’s stances on abortion as “one of the most extreme.’
“I think that we have to be very crystal clear,” Fried said. “The first decision that Donald Trump had to do was choose a vice president, and he chose J.D. Vance, one of the most extreme individuals when it comes to abortion.”
Vance, a 39-year-old representing Ohio, has previously favored national abortion restrictions with states having the opportunity to implement stricter requirements. In 2022, Vance said he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally,” Rolling Stone reported, and in 2021 he said, “There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” Ohio Capital Journal reported.
The first-term senator called the November passage of an Ohio constitutional amendment establishing abortion and contraception rights, which he said he was “very involved” in advocating against, a “gut punch.”
Project 2025
As the Republican National Convention transpired this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Democrats have highlighted GOP stances on abortion and Project 2025, a 922-page plan published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, that lays out an overhaul of federal agencies and calls for federal agencies to be harsher against abortion.
The director of the report, Heritage’s Paul Dans, formerly of Trump’s administration, claims the report is the “conservative movement’s unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025.”
The plan, purposely published in preparation for the election, includes four sections, titled “Taking the Reins of Government,” “The Common Defense,” “The General Welfare,” and “The Economy.”
“Indeed, one set of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th president of the United States,” Dans wrote at the beginning of the plan.
Fried said the document in effect is “Trump’s Project 2025.”
Trump claimed last week he knows nothing about Project 2025, and later said it goes “way too far” on abortion.
“While Trump is trying to dance around all of these issues, look at the facts,” Fried said. “Look at how he chose J.D. Vance and look at what’s happened in Project 2025. Project 2025 makes it very crystal clear that they want a national abortion ban.”
The recently released Republican National Committee platform calls for states to manage abortion rights, instead of what it previously called for, federal abortion limits.
Nationally, the constitutional right to abortion was repealed in 2022 with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, opening the door for stricter abortion limits or bans to be imposed by states.
Trump has boasted about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a decision that came after he appointed a Republican supermajority on the Supreme Court.
“We are already seeing the first chapter of the Project 2025 playbook tested out right here in the state of Florida,” Fried said. “Since Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, he unleashed extreme and dangerous abortion bans across the entire country, including right here in the Sunshine State.”
Fried said Florida has been one of the “lab rats for Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation” through bans on books, attacks on immigrants, drastic changes to New College of Florida, and suspended state attorneys Monique Worrell and Andrew Warren.
‘Complete trust’ in Biden
Despite calls from some Democrats for a change at the top of the Democratic ticket, the Florida Democratic party chair said she has “complete trust in Joe Biden.”
“People understand what Joe Biden has done for this country,” she said.
Fried insisted Florida Democrats are “united” in support for Biden. She reflected on Biden’s successes since taking office, pointing to environmental initiatives, navigating a post-pandemic economy, and lower insulin prices.
“Let me also be very clear on this. Joe Biden has beaten Trump before and I do believe that he can do it again,” Fried said. “We trusted Joe Biden and 2020 and we trust that he is going to always do what is right for the country.”
State Sen.-elect Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former member of the Florida House, backed Biden, too.
“Trump wants to rig our economy for his billionaire friends, rig our government against whoever he decides is his enemy, and rig our health care system against women in this country,” Guillermo Smith said during the news conference.
“Working families cannot afford another Trump presidency, and that’s why we’re going to fight like hell to send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back to the White House, and Trump back Mar a Lago.”
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