Donald Trump won’t stop posting about abortion

The former president is obsessed with the one issue that could sink his comeback White House bid

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Apr 12, 2024

There’s no question that the fight over abortion rights will be one of the biggest issues of this election, and the damage caused by the right-wing Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade sent shockwaves yet again through our politics this week.

On Monday, Donald Trump, the man single-handedly responsible for ending universal access to abortion in this country, took to Truth Social to announce his “new” position on the issue.

In one of his signature direct-to-camera videos, the former President bizarrely bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade, praised the extremist Supreme Court justices for their ruling in Dobbs, and claimed that he’s always wanted abortion access to be a “states’ rights issue.” This was obviously a calculated political strategy - not some grand policy turnaround. Even though last fall he ran campaign ads on Facebook about being “the most pro-life president ever” and has publicly said that “the federal government has a role to play in protecting unborn life,” his team also knew there was a strong chance that the legacy political press would take the bait and run a few headlines noting his “moderation” on the issue.

Our friends at USA Today were happy to help on that front.

Trump didn’t just stop there. He has since posted thirteen (13) times about his abortion stance on Truth Social this week. He has continued to brag about ending Roe v. Wade, shared clips and op-eds praising his newfound abortion stance, repeatedly claimed that Democrats are “reeling” and don’t know how to respond, and staged a fake fight with Lindsay Graham to show that he isn’t somehow aligned with conservatives on the issue.

In one post, he even acknowledged what this is really about: a national abortion ban would make it “impossible” for Republicans to win elections.

One day after Trump made his abortion stance known, voters in a critical battleground state saw firsthand the result of this new “states’ rights” position. On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated a total ban on abortion that was put in place over 160 years ago, before Arizona was even a state. The Biden campaign, celebrities, liberal influencers, and news organizations spread the news of the draconian ban far and wide across the internet, and once again, Trump was forced to respond.

More reading on this:

Digital ad spending, by the numbers:

FWIW, political advertisers spent just over $8.5 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:

RNC co-chair Lara Trump started running new Facebook ads from her own page last week, paid for by a new legal disclaimer, the “Trump National Committee JFC.” With that, the Trump RNC takeover appears to be complete. The Biden campaign also launched new ads via a page called “The Daily Scroll,” an effort to place positive mainstream news stories about the President’s wins in users' feeds.

Further down-ballot, Progress NC Action is up with new ads educating Black voters in the Tarheel State about extremist gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.

Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $3.3 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:

Clear Choice, a new Super PAC formed by Democrats to take on third-party presidential candidates, is running this new anti-RFK Jr. ad on YouTube in key swing states. I wrote about Kennedy’s very online spoiler campaign last month.

On Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent $1 million on ads year to date. Here are the top spenders:

…and on X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers have spent over $1.7 million on the platform in 2024. Here are the top spending accounts:

Your 2024 digital dispatch

FWIW, here’s how weekly digital ad spending (Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube) compares between the Trump and Biden campaigns year-to-date:

Last week, the Biden campaign continued to outspend Team Trump online pretty dramatically. To date, they’ve spent $16.8 million on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube, compared to Trump’s $3.7 million on those same platforms.

The vibes on TikTok last week:

As I’ve written repeatedly, the social media ecosystem has significantly changed since 2020. This time around, TikTok (which doesn’t allow political advertising) is playing a greater role in feeding voters political content, and we want to help surface what content about the Presidential election is breaking through on the app. Starting this week, FWIW will attempt to provide recurring data and analysis on some of the app's top-performing posts mentioning Biden or Trump in a given week. I’ve outlined our methodology in detail here.

For starters, here’s a look at 10 of the most-liked videos mentioning Trump in the past week:

The most-liked TikTok video we could find about Trump in the past week is this one, featuring weird engagement bait about Barron Trump being all grown up now. It’s received over 7 million views. There’s also this breakdown of Donald’s messy relationships from @mesnarky. A video mocking Trump for staring at the eclipse also performed well, as did Lucy’s video from @couriernewsroom highlighting low attendance at a Trump rally. In the pro-Trump column, videos of the former President visiting an Atlanta Chick-fil-A were everywhere we looked online this week.

Here were some of the most-liked videos mentioning Biden in the past week:

The biggest mention of Biden on TikTok last week came from Harry Daniels, a creator who awkwardly sings to people. His video singing to President Biden has received over 16 million views and 3.6 million likes. Another top post came from @ninjanurse, who shared the micro-drama about guests refusing a White House invite over Gaza, and this video from the Biden campaign featuring Bernie Sanders.

More from around the internet:

Taylor Lorenz at the Washington Post published a good story on how hundreds of political and news content creators are trying to get Meta to reverse their new policy of limiting political content on Instagram and Threads. Check out Accountable Tech’s open letter to Instagram’s head here.

Speaking of Taylor Lorenz, she was on COURIER’s Vibes Only podcast this week, where she pushed back against Congressional TikTok legislation and highlighted three internet things she thinks will influence the election this fall. Listen here >>

NBC has a good piece on how President Biden’s re-election outreach strategy focuses on reaching people with content rather than trying to create huge crowds and rallies.

Cornel West, a former Matrix star and third-party presidential candidate who has the potential to spoil the election in Trump’s favor, picked his running mate this week, and she comes with a lot of online baggage.

That’s it for FWIW this week. This email was sent to 20,338 readers. If you enjoy reading this newsletter each week, would you mind sharing it on Twitter or Threads? Have a tip, idea, or feedback? Reply directly to this email.