Biden trolls Trump over Bible grift as he slams abortion bans that ‘rip away rights of women’

Florida hasn’t given its electoral votes to a Democrat in over a decade — and since former president Donald Trump moved his primary residence there, it has become ground zero for his Make America Great Again movement. But President Joe Biden and the brain trust of his re-election campaign think opposition to the state’s abortion ban could put the state in play this November.

As Mr Trump continues to cool his heels in a New York City courtroom, Mr Biden on Tuesday will travel from Washington to Tampa, Florida. There, he will headline a campaign event focused on rallying women and supporters of reproductive rights just one weekbefore the ban takes effect.

The draconian six-week ban, which was recently upheld and allowed to go into effect by Florida’s Supreme Court after being enacted under Governor Ron DeSantis, effectively prevents the procedure altogether. Most women won’t even know they are pregnant before they have gone over the limit.

Florida was previously an outlier among Republican-controlled states in the Southeastern US by having comparatively lenient abortion laws. Because of this, the state’s new legislation will make abortion inaccessible for a broad swath of Americans — unless voters approve a ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive rights into state law this November. And the president’s campaign is counting on those voters to juice turnout in his favour.

The state’s Democratic Party is rallying behind the same effort, with chair Nikki Fried calling her strategy “the three A’s: affordability, accountability and abortion”. State Demcorats are seeking to not just make the argument that Democrats will protect reproductive rights, but drive home the idea that Republicans are actively rolling those rights