Lujan Grisham lambasts Trump on CNN over abortion, border bill (copy)

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham predicted in front of a national audience Tuesday that abortion foes are going to come for contraceptives next.

“You think that they’ll start going after contraceptives?” CNN’s Sara Sidner asked the governor in an interview that aired Tuesday morning.

“Absolutely,” Lujan Grisham replied. “I mean, look at the fights with IVF [in vitro fertilization] and related — and good for [President Joe] Biden for making sure that we can now get over-the-counter access to contraceptives.”

The governor’s comments came the same day former President Donald Trump said he was open to restrictions on contraception, remarks he quickly backpedaled in a social media post by writing he would “never, and will never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control or other contraceptives.”

Lujan Grisham, who is in New York City and Washington, D.C., this week to participate in a panel discussion on clean energy and also attend a White House state dinner in honor of the president of Kenya and his wife, told Sidner that New Mexico is seeing an “influx” of women seeking reproductive health care due to restrictions in neighboring states. Texas bans abortion almost entirely, while in Arizona abortion is currently banned after 15 weeks.

“As a result, I funded another reproductive rights and abortion clinic in Southern New Mexico where we’re seeing an influx of women coming from El Paso, and their families,” she said.

State lawmakers passed $10 million for the planned clinic in Doña Ana County in 2023, and last week the University of New Mexico Board of Regents approved buying the land for it.

Lujan Grisham, an abortion rights supporter, said the country isn’t focused on maternal health.

“This is a disaster, and he said he was going to do it, the former president, and he’s going to keep doing it,” she said, referring to Trump. “He’s bowing to extremists that are rolling back constitutional protections and rights for women and their families, and it’s outrageous, and contraceptives, I think, are next.”

The Republican Party of New Mexico responded in an email the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade returned the decision to the states.

“The majority of individuals in certain states may prefer stricter abortion regulations, while those in other states may prefer more lenient ones,” spokeswoman Ash Soular wrote. “This is democracy in action and this is what President Trump supports.”

Soular called the Democrats the “extremists on abortion,” saying New Mexico is “last in education, opportunity, and public safety, but we’re #1 in late-term abortions.”

“Instead of supporting struggling New Mexican families, Democrats choose to allocate their tax dollars to fund abortion clinics and out-of-state abortions,” she wrote.

The governor also spoke about the border security bill the U.S. Senate is expected to take up later this week. Trump opposes the bill, and so far it has stalled in Congress due to Republican opposition. Lujan Grisham referred to Trump as “the candidate of chaos” on the border for pushing to block the measure and noted that the bill is backed by the Border Patrol’s union.

“This is now become a really harsh political issue and people get caught again and again in the crossfire,” she said. “Shame on Republicans here, again.”

Soular accused Lujan Grisham of “attempting to deceive people into thinking that what they’re seeing is not real,” pointing to rising fentanyl overdoses and crimes including a 2021 gang rape in Santa Fe involving four men from Guatemala. She also criticized the Senate border bill and Democrats for opposing House Resolution 2, a Republican proposal that, among other provisions, would reduce asylum claims and resume construction of a wall along the Mexican border.

“The only way to stop the Democrat gaslighting, achieve real border security, and get our country back on the right track is to vote Republican up and down the ballot in November,” Soular wrote.

Asked whether she was “dissatisfied” with the way the Biden administration has handled the issue and about her conversations with the president, Lujan Grisham said she wasn’t “disappointed” but “frustrated.”

“I think he is incredibly frustrated as well,” she said.

“Here are my conversations: I trust that I have a president that is clear that we don’t hate immigrants in this country, that we are a country built on immigration, that he’s clear about the security risks and the threats at the border,” Lujan Grisham said.

“He’s also clear that it’s more than this country. I need help from the other countries, including Mexico. But he is hamstrung, and if you’re not going to fund the personnel, you’re not going to give us the security aspects, then it hamstrings states like mine,” she said.

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.