Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that if he’s elected again, his administration would fund in vitro fertilization treatments.
“I was always for IVF. Right from the beginning, as soon as we heard about it,” the Republican nominee said in an interview with NBC News in Michigan.
Trump told NBC he’d support public funding for in vitro fertilization, or a mandate requiring insurance companies to cover it. He reiterated the proposal during a town hall in La Crosse, Wisc. Thursday evening, but he did not provide any details on how the plan would work.
The procedure to treat infertility can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
“We’re doing this because we just think it’s great. And we need great children, beautiful children in our country, we actually need them,” Trump told NBC.
Some anti-abortion activists want to restrict or ban IVF because the process typically involves discarding excess embryos. But most voters, including many Republicans, support access to the procedure.
An Alabama Supreme Court decision earlier this year temporarily cut off access to IVF until state lawmakers intervened, forcing many high-profile Republicans to weigh in on the issue.
Trump’s comments come as he appears to be trying to soften his image on reproductive rights ahead of the November election over concerns about voter backlash. Abortion is expected to be a key issue in the election, with Democrats warning voters that Republicans would further restrict access to reproductive healthcare if former Trump is elected.
Trump has repeatedly, and proudly, taken credit for the Supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade, after he appointed three conservative justices to the court. But last week, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.”
That statement drew criticism from some abortion rights opponents including his former vice president, Mike Pence. Trump also recently indicated in a CBS News interview that he would not use a 19th-century anti-obscenity law, the Comstock Act, to restrict abortion pills. That statement also drew pushback from some activists.
The Harris-Walz campaign responded to Trump’s IVF comments, saying in a statement that “Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, IVF is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country.”
“There is only one candidate in this race who trusts women and will protect our freedom to make our own health care decisions: Vice President Kamala Harris,” the statement from spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said.
In an interview with CNN Friday, Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance did not specify how an IVF coverage mandate would work, saying “details get worked out in the legislative process.” He also deflected a question about what would happen if the administration guaranteed access to IVF treatments but a state court banned the procedure, calling it a “ridiculous hypothetical.”
Transcript:
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So candidate Donald Trump, meanwhile, worked to counterprogram the vice president and her running mate, Tim Walz. At that interview on CNN that we just talked about, the former president held a town hall in the key battleground state of Wisconsin.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In two events Thursday, in fact, Trump tried out some new material mixed in with his usual talking points about immigration and inflation. He traveled to Michigan as well as Wisconsin.
MARTIN: Minnesota Public Radio’s Clay Masters was at that event in La Crosse, and he’s with us now. Good morning, Clay.
CLAY MASTERS, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Trump started his town hall with a question about IVF – in vitro fertilization – a bit of a different topic for him. This came after he told a reporter earlier in the day that he wanted IVF to be covered by the federal government or mandated with private insurance. Did he talk about this later Thursday?
MASTERS: Yeah, the question at this – what the campaign called a town hall came from former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard who is the moderator of this event put on by the campaign. She told a story about how she and her husband tried for years to get pregnant with IVF and were unsuccessful. Of course, IVF is a surprise political issue in the post-Roe reproductive rights landscape. Trump reiterated what he said earlier in the day to an NBC News reporter in Michigan that he supports IVF and wants it to be widely available.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: We are – government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get or mandate your insurance company to pay for it…
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: …Which is going to be great.
MASTERS: And I should note, Trump did not provide any specific details whatsoever.
MARTIN: And, of course, this is part of a bigger change in rhetoric around reproductive rights that Trump has been trying out. And, you know, abortion being a primary issue here, did he talk about that?
MASTERS: Well, in that same NBC News interview earlier Thursday, Trump indicated he would vote in favor of abortion rights in Florida’s ballot measure. The campaign was quick to push back after the interview, saying President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida. He simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short. Florida has a six-week abortion ban in effect right now.
But abortion is clearly still an issue Trump is wrestling with. He didn’t last night, but he regularly touts being the one who, you know, appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. In Wisconsin last night, he used the issue to criticize Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He accused Walz of supporting abortions into the third trimester of pregnancy, though he did not back that up with any evidence.
MARTIN: So you just said that he’s been using abortion as a way – or he’s trying out this attack line against Tim Walz. With Walz new to the ticket, what are his storylines? Like, what are – how are his attacks shaping up?
MASTERS: Yeah, La Crosse, Wis. – right across the Mississippi River from Minnesota, so there were a lot of people in the audience from the neighboring state. A woman from Minnesota got up to ask a question about crime and just mentioning the home of Harris’ running mate just riled up Trump. Pivoting quickly to a label that Walz has given Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, Trump is kind of working to flip the script.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: He’s not weird, and I’m not weird. I mean, we’re a lot of things. We’re not weird, I will tell you. But that guy is weird, don’t you think?
MASTERS: So Trump went on to talk about a bill Walz signed in Minnesota that made tampons available in school bathrooms. Walz is giving Trump a lot to work with. But Trump is clearly still unsure what his line of attack is going to be against the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
MARTIN: That is Minnesota Public Radio’s Clay Masters. Clay, thank you.
MASTERS: You’re welcome.
