Live U.S. election results: Trump wins Florida in AP race call
Donald Trump won Florida on Tuesday for the third consecutive election, earning the state's 30 electoral votes, according to AP.
Melania Trump revealed her support for abortion rights Thursday ahead of the release of her upcoming memoir, exposing a stark contrast with her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on the crucial election issue.
In a video posted to her X account Thursday morning, the former U.S. first lady defended women's “individual freedoms” to do what they want with their body — a position at odds with much of the Republican Party and her own husband, who has struggled to find a consistent message on abortion while wedged between anti-abortion supporters within his base and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.
“Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” she said in the video. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom. What does ‘my body, my choice’ really mean?”
The video appears to confirm excerpts of her self-titled memoir reported by The Guardian on Wednesday.
Melania Trump has rarely publicly expressed her personal political views and has been largely absent from the campaign trail. But in her memoir, set to be released publicly next Tuesday, she argues that the decision to end a pregnancy should be left to a woman and her doctor, “free from any intervention of pressure from the government,” according to the published excerpts.
“Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she wrote, according to The Guardian. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
Melania Trump writes that she has “carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
These views contrast sharply with the GOP's anti-abortion platform and with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly taken credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and boasted about returning the abortion question to the states. Democrats have blamed the former U.S. president for the severe deterioration of reproductive rights as abortion bans were implemented in large swaths of the country following the overturning of the landmark case, which had granted a constitutional right to abortion.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign noted Trump's role in ending Roe v. Wade in a statement reacting to Melania Trump's defence of abortion rights.
“Sadly for the women across America, Mrs. Trump’s husband firmly disagrees with her and is the reason that more than one in three American women live under a Trump Abortion Ban that threatens their health, their freedom, and their lives,” Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear: If he wins in November, he will ban abortion nationwide, punish women, and restrict women’s access to reproductive health care."
Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would veto a federal abortion ban, the first time he has explicitly said so after previously refusing to answer questions on the subject. Abortion rights advocates are skeptical, however, saying Trump cannot be trusted not to restrict reproductive rights.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about Melania Trump's book or video.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the memoir is another example of “the Trumps playing voters like a fiddle.”
“As president, (Trump) made it his mission to get Roe v. Wade overturned,” she said in a statement. “Melania stood by him, never once publicly disavowing his actions until weeks before an election where our bodies are again on the ballot and they are losing voters to this issue. Read between the lines.”
Democratic strategist Brittany Crampsie called the memoir's release a “clear attempt to appeal to more moderate voters and to moderate JD Vance’s very clearly extreme views on the issue." But she is skeptical that the move would work in favour of Trump, saying his shifting views “have already confused voters and sowed distrust.”
Melania Trump also defends abortions later in pregnancy, asserting that “most abortions conducted during the later stages of pregnancy were the result of severe fetal abnormalities that probably would have led to the death or stillbirth of the child. Perhaps even the death of the mother."
“These cases were extremely rare and typically occurred after several consultations between the woman and her doctor,” she writes.
These views appear diametrically opposed to her husband, who has often parroted misinformation about abortions later in pregnancy, falsely claiming that Democrats support abortion “after birth,” though infanticide is outlawed in every state.
Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law who focuses on reproductive rights law and history, said it is unclear if the memoir’s release so close to the election was an attempt to help Donald Trump. But she did note that Melania Trump's split from Trump on the issue is not uncommon historically.
There is “a pretty deep history of first ladies being more supportive of abortion rights than their husbands,” including Betty Ford, a vocal abortion rights supporter and the wife of former President Gerald Ford, Ziegler said.
Donald Trump promoted his wife's book at a September rally in New York, calling on supporters to “go out and get her book.” It is unclear if the former president has read the book.
“Go out and buy it,” he told the crowd. “It’s great. And if she says bad things about me, I’ll call you all up, and I’ll say, ‘Don’t buy it.’”
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Donald Trump won Florida on Tuesday for the third consecutive election, earning the state's 30 electoral votes, according to AP.
A divided America weighed a stark choice for the nation's future Tuesday as a presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancor approached its finale.
Outlets across the United States have been crunching numbers, parsing polls and working their magic models to predict the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election.
Exit polls are a set of surveys that ask voters whom they voted for, as well as additional questions about their political opinions, the factors they considered in the election and their own backgrounds more broadly.
These swing states will most likely determine the path to the presidency, with candidates needing to win some combination of votes to get them across the 270 mark to secure a majority.
The Canadian government says it has raised concerns directly with Russian officials after media reports this week revealed an alleged Russian sabotage operation. The alleged plot included plans to send parcels packed with incendiary devices aboard aircraft destined for Canada and the United States.
Journalists from multiple news organizations have been denied credentials to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s election night watch event in West Palm Beach, Florida, in retaliation for their coverage of Trump’s campaign.
Donald Trump is refusing to say how he voted on Florida's abortion measure -- and getting testy about it.
Tropical Storm Rafael strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane on Tuesday as it swirled past Jamaica and chugged toward western Cuba.
Ten-thousand hand-knit poppies were taken from the Sanctuary Arts Centre and displayed on the fence surrounding the Dartmouth Cenotaph on Monday.
A Vancouver man is saying goodbye to his nine-to-five and embarking on a road trip from the Canadian Arctic to Antarctica.
A Windsor teen’s social media post showing off a distinctive Windsor pizza topping has gone viral, drawing millions of views worldwide and sparking new curiosity about Windsor-style pizza.
Auston Matthews has come face to face with his look-alike. On Thursday, the Maple Leafs star met seven-year-old Grayson Joseph, who went viral for dressing up as an Auston Matthews hockey card.
A Halifax junk remover shares some of his company’s strangest discoveries.
When Leah arrived at work directing traffic around a construction site, she never expected to see a van painted in all sorts of bright colours, and covered in eclectic decorations, including a stuffed moose attached to its roof.
After 14 years of repairing and selling bicycles out of the garage of her home, a Guelph, Ont. woman’s efforts have ended – for now, at least.
Epcor says it has removed more than 20,000 goldfish from an Edmonton stormwater pond.
Witches and warlocks have been flocking to New Brunswick waterways this month, as a new Halloween tradition ripples across the province.