The Strange New Love-Fest Between Donald Trump and Planned Parenthood

[David_42]

Partisan hacks still love him.
"Alone among the Republican field, the front-runner offers a defense of the controversial women's health care group."

Donald Trump says he'd support shutting down the government to defund Planned Parenthood. But he's also defending the conservative boogeyman du jour, and the women's health provider seems happy with the kind words.

On Tuesday night, the Republican presidential front-runner defended the women's health services provider in an interview on Fox News' Hannity.Trump noted that abortion was a "fairly small part" of what Planned Parenthood does and that "we have to look at the positives also for Planned Parenthood."

"They do good things," he said, interrupting interviewer Sean Hannity's question.


annual report, 3 percent of the roughly 11 million services it provided in 2013 were abortions. The other 97 percent included STD testing and treatment, contraception, cancer screenings, pregnancy tests and other noncontroversial services.

Planned Parenthood said some of Trump's remarks in recent days have been "offensive," but it welcomed the statement of support the real estate mogul, the only Republican presidential candidate who has defended the organization.

"Donald Trump seems to have realized that banning all abortions, shutting down the government, and defunding Planned Parenthood are extreme positions that are way too far outside the mainstream for even him to take," Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.

The latest controversy surrounding the organization began in mid-July after anti-abortion activists released videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the cost of aborted fetal tissue. The group strenuously denies allegations any illegal activity and insists it only seeks to cover the cost of lawfully donating tissue for medical research. The videos set off a wave of outrage from conservative politicians and prompted Republican leaders to call for eliminating Planned Parenthood's $500 million in annual federal funding through Title X and Medicaid. Within Republican ranks, the debate is not over whether to end funding for Planned Parenthood, but whether to hold up key funding bills— threatening a government shutdown—to try to make that happen when money expires on September 30.

Trump's solution, he said, is to "defund [Planned Parenthood] having to do with the abortions" but not the group's other services. That misses what to many Republicans is a key point: the group is already prohibited by law from using any taxpayer money to fund its abortion services. Critics of this arrangement reject the notion of a firewall; they argue that any money going to Planned Parenthood effectively bolsters its abortion clinics.

When Hannity pointed that out, Trump suggested "maybe unless they stop with the abortions we don't do the funding for stuff that we want."

The Strange New Love-Fest Between Donald Trump and Planned Parenthood - Bloomberg Politics