Former President Donald Trump has stated that he would like to “make both sides happy” on the issue of abortion, leading some to question whether he’s taking a middle path, or compromising with the left on some issues while standing his ground on others.
“The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15 [weeks],” he said. “And I’m thinking in terms of that. And it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable. But people are really, even hardliners are agreeing, seems to be, 15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”
The former president said the three major exceptions—for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother—are important for Republicans to include in their policies, but he maintained that abortion is a state issue and that the federal government shouldn’t be involved.
He was panned by political commentators such as Liz Wheeler, who argued that he shouldn’t cater to the left by becoming a centrist.
“His best move is and always will be to stay based and savage,” she posted on X. “Hate to see this garbage from him.”
However, economic analyst and political commentator Mike Shedlock told The Epoch Times that President Trump needs to appeal more to those who will decide the election: the moderates.
Appealing to the Moderates
Both President Joe Biden and President Trump are making “a huge mistake” by not appealing more to undecided voters in the middle, according to Mr. Shedlock.
“Both Trump and Biden are ignoring the people who are going to decide the election, which are the undecided voters, the independents, and the moderates who don’t like either of them,” he said.
In President Trump’s favor, President Biden has alienated more moderates, and a potential recession stemming from his “Green New Deal” economic policies by the time of the election could be “the nail in the coffin” for President Biden’s second term, Mr. Shedlock said.
“Biden is telling people that they are better off now than they were under Trump, which they know is a lie,” he said.
As it stands, Mr. Shedlock said it appears President Trump will win the election.
“But I would like to see him change the way he’s going about it,” he said.
The issues he should avoid are those he and his voting base already agree upon, such as abortion and whether the Jan. 6 defendants should be pardoned, Mr. Shedlock said.
Name-calling isn’t doing President Trump any favors either, Mr. Shedlock said.
“There’s actually a negative benefit for Trump to keep calling Nikki Haley birdbrain,” he said, adding that the former president can criticize Ms. Haley’s hawkish foreign policy positions without offending her former supporters by insulting her intelligence.
President Trump has also often called Mr. DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley could have helped President Trump’s campaign, Mr. Shedlock said.
However, those relationships are “probably too poisoned at this point,” he added.
Social Security
On the issue of Social Security, President Trump has stated that Republicans shouldn’t “cut a single penny,” which Mr. Shedlock said aligns with Democrat President Joe Biden’s view.
“People say Social Security is going to run out of money,” Mr. Shedlock said. “That’s actually false. What is going to happen is Social Security is going to run out of the ability to pay the same benefits that they have been paying, so, in other words, cuts are coming by 2032 if we do nothing. So, it’s curious that both Biden and Trump have said they’re not going to touch it.”
Affordable Care Act
Mr. Shedlock said he believes President Trump “has given up on trying to get rid of Obamacare,” which he said is a mistake.
In the post, President Trump said he’s running to make the ACA more affordable, end the border crisis, and stop inflation. He also accused President Biden of ruining the economy.
A March 23 post on President Biden’s X account said President Trump is “just one step away from repealing the Affordable Care Act.” The post added: “Now, he’s determined to try again, running to ’terminate’ it—and cut Medicare and Social Security while he’s at it. I won’t let that happen.”
Mr. Shedlock said health care should still be an issue for President Trump, even more so now because “states are getting hammered” with an influx of illegal immigrants who are flooding the hospital systems, using Medicaid to the degree that citizens have to be turned away.
In 2022, it was reported that the 8,000 migrants who arrived in Denver visited the hospital up to 20,000 times.
The health system asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide funds to cover the immigrants’ medical costs; however, the agency refused to reimburse the hospital system for the $136 million from patients who didn’t pay, according to the report.
Denver Health CEO Donna Lynne said the system is “turning down patients every day, particularly in the area of mental health and substance abuse.”
“While I have tremendous compassion for what’s going on—it’s heartbreaking—it’s going to break Denver Health,” Ms. Lynne said.
Free Health Care for Illegal Immigrants
In a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, all candidates said they would include free health care plans for illegal immigrants.
“Our country is healthier when everybody is healthier,” he said. “And remember we’re talking about something people are given a chance to buy into. In the same way that there are undocumented immigrants in my community who pay—they pay sales taxes, they pay property taxes, directly or indirectly—this is not about a handout. This is an insurance program and we do no favors by having 11 million undocumented people in our country be unable to access health care.”
President Biden, who was then still a candidate, also defended this position.
“You cannot let people who are sick, no matter where they come from, no matter what their status, go uncovered,” he said. “You can’t do that. It’s just going to be taken care of. Period. You have to. It’s the humane thing to do.”
President Biden said he believed that including illegal immigrants in the country’s health care system would lower costs for everyone.
“They would do the same thing in terms of reducing the overall cost of health care by being able to be treated and not wait until they’re in extremis,” President Biden said.
Obamacare Shafts Cancer Survivor
Fifty-three-year-old bone cancer survivor Scott Lunsford told The Epoch Times in a recent interview that seeing the candidates raise their hands in support of free health care for illegal immigrants after he had lost his health care under Obamacare was what made him leave the Democratic Party.
Mr. Lunsford said he was a moderate voter who voted for President Obama in 2008 because of how Democrats promoted ACA.
Despite promises that he could keep his plan and doctor, neither turned out to be true.
Mr. Lunsford had already roughed it through two bouts of cancer and had to have his arm removed on the second round when he was 36.
He voted again for President Obama in hopes that the ACA would do all that was promised; however, after it was implemented in 2010, “the wheels just started falling off.”
Before ACA, his monthly insurance plan was $185 with a $1,000 deductible. However, that policy was canceled because it no longer met the ACA requirements.
The cheapest option available under the new law was a $1,200 monthly plan with a $6,000 deductible, he reported.
He was in the process of applying for disability while his wife was making $10 an hour trying to support a family of five, he said.
“We had a hard decision to make,” he said. “Do we go ahead and get this more expensive insurance, or do we feed our children?”
Of course, he said, they chose to keep their children fed and clothed, but consequentially, he went 10 years without health insurance, even though a doctor had told them that he needed to be checked every six months for a reoccurrence of cancer.
Then, he was taxed annually for not having insurance, he said.
“What really frustrated me was every time Democrat candidates would get up on stage, they would campaign on how our health care system is broken, but they all voted for this,” he said.
When he saw the candidates advocate for free health care for illegal immigrants, he said he had to “wash his hands of the Democratic Party.”
“For them to sit there and gloat about how they would give illegals insurance while taking mine away, not allowing me to have those tests be done to ensure my cancer didn’t come back, and then penalize me for it—I was done with them. I started to see clearly for the first time.”
On appealing to moderates like himself, Mr. Lunsford said President Trump would do well to pick a vice president candidate like former Democrat congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an Independent.
“I think she would make a great candidate,” Mr. Lunsford said. “She’s young and she was in the military.”
As a moderate, Mr. Lunsford said he sees “low-hanging fruit in the middle.”
“That’s why I think his vice president selection is so important,” he said.
Obamacare Still an Issue
Mr. Shedlock said he’s surprised President Trump is no longer addressing Obamacare because it continues to be an issue.
“There were 10 states that did not fall for the Medicaid expansion trap under Obamacare,” he said. “All the rest are suffering.”
“In expansion states, hospitals’ Medicaid shortfalls have reached $22.3 billion, increasing by 117 percent since 2013,” he said. “If non-expansion states were to expand, their hospitals’ Medicaid shortfalls would more than double, from $6.3 billion to $13.2 billion.”
He added that those states that refused to expand Medicaid, such as Mississippi, Texas, and Florida, “should continue to say no to Medicaid expansion.”
“These shortfalls are really bad and they’re going to get worse because of illegal immigrants,” Mr. Shedlock said.
Economic Repercussions
There are major repercussions to who wins in this election on an economic front, Mr. Shedlock said.
President Biden’s “highly inflationary” policies don’t bode well for the future and are already “disastrous,” he said.
“Economists are cheering right now because they think we’ve fixed inflation, but I’m looking at what’s coming down the pike,” he said. “This is just a pause before the next round.”
