Former President Donald Trump said in an interview airing Monday that he thought Project 2025 went “way too far” on abortion and said the closely-aligned conservative group was “too severe.”
“I have no idea what it is. It’s a group of extremely conservative people got together and wrote up a wish list of things, many of which I disagree with entirely. They’re too severe, like on abortion, as an example. They have a strong view of abortion,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News that the network said was taped on Saturday at Mar-a-Lago before he traveled to his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump has sought to distance himself from the conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that has attracted considerable blowback in his race for the White House.
While Trump claims to not know what the group is or who is behind it, a CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved.
The former president, who regularly champions his role in appointing conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, says he thinks abortion should be left to the states to legislate. The Republican National Committee recently adopted a platform that is Trump-focused and softened language on abortion and same-sex marriage.
Trump added that he thought abortion “is not a federal issue” and “would never be a federal issue again.”