WASHINGTON (1010 WINS) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court may likely overturn Roe v. Wade is "a very dangerous precedent," though it is "too early to tell" if the final decision will have a major effect on November’s midterm elections.
According to Trump, who nominated three of the four conservative justices who appeared ready to overturn the 1973 landmark ruling, the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's February draft opinion on Monday night was "surprising."
"It was so surprising to see coming out of the Supreme Court, because Washington is a city of leaks and yet the Supreme Court, I’ve never seen a leak and people haven’t seen leaks and that's for decades, so it was so surprising to see," Trump told Fox News Digital.
"It is a very dangerous precedent — a very dangerous precedent," he added. "It was disconcerting to see that."
When asked if he thought the leak was a last-ditch attempt to influence the court's final ruling, Trump said, "You would never know, because it also made a lot of people very happy."
"This is very much a 50-50 issue, it is a tough issue," the former president said. "There are a lot of people that are beyond thrilled, and there are a lot of people that are not that way, and it can go both ways in a sense."
Trump even claimed the draft "could be false" and "could be something different" before Chief Justice John Roberts' statement confirming the draft's authenticity.
The former Republican president said he wanted to "see what the final opinion is."
In the high court's first public comment since the draft was published late Monday, Roberts said, "Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case." He also ordered an investigation into what he called an "egregious breach of trust."
Trump said he believes the issue of abortion should be left to the states to decide.
"Well, the states will take over, so, it really is a position that many people have been saying, including people on the left, have been saying that the proper way to do this is for the states to take over," Trump said. "And then they will have individual state cases, but that is really the proper way of doing it."
Meanwhile, he said he believes it is too early to determine how the looming ruling will affect the midterms.
"I don’t think it is going to have a tremendous effect," Trump added. "I will say, I have seen more passion on the right, at least up until this point, I can’t say what is going to happen now."
About half of U.S. states are already expected to ban abortion if Roe falls, according to the abortion-rights think tank Guttmacher Institute. Twenty-two states, largely in the South and Midwest, already have total or near-total bans on the books. Aside from Texas, all are now blocked in court because of Roe.
Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws, which would immediately ban abortion if Roe is overturned and would presumably go into effect if the Supreme Court majority votes for the draft in late June or early July.
"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," the draft opinion states. It was signed by Alito, a member of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.
The document was labeled a "1st Draft" of the "Opinion of the Court" in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks, a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the "basic fairness and the stability of our law demand" that the court not overturn Roe.
"If the court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose," Biden said. "And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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