“We are today the party of life, and we are the party of everyone,” said the former president at his first rally after the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling a day earlier, which means a federal constitutional right to abortion will be no longer granted.
“To the generations of Americans in the pro-life movement, as well as countless constitutional conservatives, your boundless love, sacrifice, and devotion, has finally been rewarded in full,” Trump said. “Congratulations.”
“This breakthrough is the answer to the prayers of millions and millions of people,” the former president told the crowd. “That’s the way it should have been many many years ago, and that’s the way it is now.”
Trump had vowed during the 2016 presidential debate that the overturning of the landmark decision legalizing abortion “will happen automatically” if he is elected.
In Friday’s ruling, all three appointees—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—sided with the pro-life majority opinion against the 1973 Roe decision.
“Thank you, Trump!” rally attendees chanted in response at the Saturday event.
During the Saturday rally, Trump applauded the high court for finding the “courage” to get the abortion rights debate back to state legislatures.
Released audio from a 911 call indicated a California man telling a dispatcher that he flew across the country to kill the justice. Nicholas John Roske, 26, was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland on June 8.
“This was an organized and concentrated effort to threaten the court and interfere with its decisions,” Trump said of pro-abortion activists attempting to obstruct the justices. “But the justices stood their ground against these extremists and these terrorists, and they did not back down.”