On Tuesday’s “CNN News Central,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) responded to a question on why the Harris-Walz campaign is doing an abortion tour when voters say the economy is more important to them by saying that they have to focus on the economy, where “the Biden-Harris record is incredibly strong,” and that Florida’s abortion law, which was passed by a democratically-elected legislature and signed by a democratically-elected governor, is an “example of the anti-democratic proposals and policies of Donald Trump. He’s proud that he appointed a Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade” and thus allowed democratically-elected legislatures to decide abortion policy.
Co-host John Berman asked, “Congresswoman, Quinnipiac and The Wall Street Journal both did polls last week where they asked voters, a little bit different questions, but what is the most important issue to you in one poll and extremely important to you in the other. And in the Wall Street Journal poll, abortion was at 14%. The economy is at 29%. You can see right there, the economy, twice as important, according to voters, as abortion. And in the Quinnipiac poll, democracy was top-ranked, economy second, and then abortion down at 33%, a little bit down the list. So, I guess my question to you is, why aren’t you about to go on an economy tour?”
Wasserman Schultz answered, “We’re going on a reproductive rights tour, because we’re starting here in Donald Trump’s backyard in Palm Beach County, which, in our state, across Florida, we are the poster child for the MAGA extremism that has ripped women’s reproductive healthcare decisions from them, a ban so extreme that it is likely that most women don’t even know that they’re pregnant at six weeks, which is when our ban begins. And, on top of that, you have severe restrictions that could have doctors land in prison and even people who are aiding in providing a woman with an abortion after six weeks could be arrested. This is the worst example of the anti-democratic proposals and policies of Donald Trump. He’s proud that he appointed a Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. And we need to make sure that we focus on the economy, which, the Biden-Harris record is incredibly strong, reducing prescription drug costs, making sure we created more than 15 million jobs and counting, bringing inflation down, we have a record to run on. But making sure that the government is not all up in your personal healthcare business is a critical one and we have an abortion rights ballot initiative here, Amendment 4, that we want to make sure that folks across the state know about and vote yes for.”
Later, she added, “[W]e want to make sure that we can continue the policies that have been administrated by the Biden-Harris administration of reducing prescription drug costs, creating jobs, bringing costs down, and that’s what Kamala Harris is continuing to talk about, and also making housing more affordable, which is a real issue in Florida, too.”
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