Former President Donald Trump is promoting a right-wing political group that supports a total abortion ban after the group’s leader Brian Burch dishonestly smeared Vice President Kamala Harris on Fox News as he promoted the group’s new swing-state ad attacking Harris. In contrast, Catholic Vote praised Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as a “historic moment” and called Vance a “hero.”
Burch claimed on Fox that Harris has “an unmistakable record of deep hostility and hatred for Catholics and what Catholics believe,” a charge he repeated in an email Monday. Responding to Trump cheering on Catholic Vote on social media, the group tweeted, “We’re proud to expose Kamala’s vile hatred of Catholics.”
Burch is lying, of course. Harris serves as vice president to the second Catholic U.S. president. Burch tends to demean the faith of Catholics who disagree with the group’s political positions by producing “dossiers” on them or using square quotes when identifying them as “Catholic.” Back when Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate, Burch called the selection of a pro-choice Catholic “a slap in the face to Catholic voters.”
Catholic Vote postures as a political organization representing American Catholics, but most American Catholics disagree with the group’s support for a total ban on abortions. In fact, 61 percent of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Catholic Vote supported Ohio Republicans’ democracy-limiting effort to stop voters from enshrining the right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution. Catholic Vote supported the Arizona 1864 total abortion ban that went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and Burch opposed the law that overturned it.
Similarly, most U.S. Catholics support marriage equality for same-sex couples, but Catholic Vote does not, and the group regularly attacks progressive Catholic political leaders who support abortion rights or LGBTQ equality.
The group has energetically backed Trump. When Trump was elected in 2016, Burch wrote that “Justice Scalia must be smiling from Heaven.” Burch has expressed disappointment that Trump has publicly distanced himself from a national abortion ban, but has also expressed confidence that a new Trump administration would be staffed with anti-abortion activists who would promote “pro-life policies.”
