Former President Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would require insurance companies or the federal government to pay for all costs associated with in vitro fertilization treatments if he is elected in November, further trying to rebrand himself to voters on an issue that has cost Republicans at the ballot box: reproductive access.
During a campaign stop in Michigan, his third visit to the battleground state in a little over a week, Mr. Trump said he would also allow new parents to deduct major expenses for newborn children from their taxes, while providing few other details.
“Because we want more babies, to put it very nicely,” Mr. Trump said at the first of consecutive events on Thursday in Midwest states that he won in 2016 but lost in 2020; he also went to Wisconsin for a town-hall event on Thursday night.
He continued: “So we’re pro-family. Nobody’s ever said that before.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks at a steel processing and distribution facility in Potterville, Mich., near the state’s capital, Lansing, fit a recent pattern of what appeared to be appeals aimed at women, a group that polling shows widely favoring Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a social media post on Friday, Mr. Trump tried to recast himself as having empowered the states to decide abortion limits as a result of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. While taking questions from reporters at a campaign event in Nevada later on Friday, he repeated his contention, a message that appeared to contrast with his past declarations to religious right groups taking credit for the court’s ruling.
“I’m very strong on women’s reproductive rights,” said Mr. Trump, who during his presidency appointed three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe, in Nevada last week.
On Thursday, the Harris campaign accused Mr. Trump of trying to run from his record on abortion access.
“Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, said in a statement. “Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, I.V.F. is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country.”
Mr. Trump has vacillated over the years on the issue of abortion, a topic that he was asked about during an NBC News interview before his event in Michigan.
“She asked me about abortion, and I handled it very nicely because, you know what, that’s so overplayed,” he said.
Emily’s List, a group dedicated to electing female candidates and supporters of reproductive rights, assailed Mr. Trump’s latest overture toward women.
“Congratulations to Donald Trump for realizing that his position and his record on abortion are wildly unpopular, particularly with women who will decide this election,” Jessica Mackler, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Mr. Trump has been focusing on Michigan with ads and visits, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three states that propelled him to the presidency in 2016 but swung toward President Biden in 2020.
Before Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from the race in late July, Mr. Trump had been tied or slightly ahead of him in those three so-called “blue wall” states. But Ms. Harris’s ascension to receiving the Democratic presidential nomination appears to have reshaped the political map. Mr. Trump trailed Ms. Harris in all three states in a poll conducted this month by The New York Times and Siena College.
Pete Hoekstra, Michigan’s Republican Party chairman, dismissed Ms. Harris’s polling bounce during an interview before Mr. Trump’s event in Potterville.
“You’ve seen them get a boost, but, you know, that’s not a surprise,” he said. “But I think it’s topped out.” He said the focus of the race was moving back from personalities to the issues, especially the economy and inflation.
Mr. Trump traveled to Wisconsin later on Thursday and is scheduled to hold a rally in Pennsylvania on Friday.
In La Crosse, Wis., Mr. Trump took questions from voters at a town hall moderated by Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run. Ms. Gabbard, who is helping Mr. Trump prepare for next month’s debate with Ms. Harris, formally endorsed Mr. Trump on Monday.
The town hall was Mr. Trump’s first visit to Wisconsin since the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and since Mr. Biden dropped out of the race. In the days after the convention, Mr. Trump suggested that he had the state locked up because the event put hundreds of millions into the state’s economy.
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