How Trump’s Haitian migrant pet-eating lies indirectly led to a vote on IVF

With their opponents mired in a new controversy after Donald Trump’s uninspiring performance at his debate with Kamala Harris, Democrats are taking the opportunity to divide their foes in Washington.

Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill opened up a two-pronged messaging assault against the GOP on Tuesday as the Senate was due to vote for the second time on legislation that would enshrine federal protections for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and force insurance companies to cover it. The legislation previously failed in the chamber, which Democrats control by a one-vote majority. But this second vote comes as Trump, seeking to shield himself from the Harris campaign’s attacks around reproductive freedom, has himself endorsed the plan.

It’s set to cause divisions within the Republican Party for obvious reasons — one chief among them being that many right-wing Christian conservatives oppose the practice of IVF entirely. Forcing private insurance companies to expand their coverage in an Obamacare-like fashion on top of all that has caused serious consternation.

“If you believe that life begins at conception as I do, there is no difference between an abortion and the destruction of an IVF embryo,” read a poster hung by Congressman Matt Rosendale — quoting Rosendale himself — outside his office over the summer. The inclusion of those views in their party is clearly embarrassing for Rosendale’s less radical colleagues.

“All Republicans, to my knowledge, support IVF,” Senator Tom Cotton wrongly said on Meet the Press earlier in September.

Harris campaign officials and Senate Democrats blasted their Senate Republican rivals on Tuesday, and made particular note of the fact that JD Vance wouldn’t attend the IVF vote at all.

“He’s a