Trump Floats Coverage Mandate for I.V.F. Treatment

The week after Democrats spent much of their national convention attacking him over his position on abortion rights and reproductive health, former President Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would require insurance companies or the federal government to pay for all costs associated with in vitro fertilization treatments if he is elected in November.

Mr. Trump’s announcement — made in an NBC interview, a speech in Michigan and a town hall in Wisconsin — came with little detail about his proposal or how he might address its cost. For one cycle, the treatments can cost up to $20,000 or more. But he has been trying to rebrand himself to voters on reproductive access and abortion rights, issues that have cost Republicans at the ballot box.

Mr. Trump, who often on the campaign trail has bragged about his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, last week on social media declared that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” a phrase used by abortion-rights advocates.

The post appeared to be an effort by Mr. Trump to cast himself as more of a political moderate on abortion, an issue that could hurt him in November.

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign accused Mr. Trump of trying to run from his record on abortion access.

“Trump lies as much if not more than he breathes, but voters aren’t stupid,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, said in a statement. “Because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, I.V.F. is already under attack and women’s freedoms have been ripped away in states across the country.”

Mr. Trump has vacillated over the years on the issue of abortion, and his efforts to prevent the issue from becoming a political liability have alienated some anti-abortion activists, a topic that resurfaced after his NBC interview.

When asked how he might vote on a coming Florida ballot question that would amend the state’s constitution to guarantee the right to abortion “before viability,” Mr. Trump repeated his past criticism of the state’s six-week limit and said he was “going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.”

Some anti-abortion activists, including the president of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, expressed concern that Mr. Trump was endorsing the ballot initiative. A Trump campaign spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, later clarified in a statement that “President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida,” a question on which he has been pressed on for months.

During his campaign stop in Potterville, Mich., his third visit to the state in a little over a week, Mr. Trump also said he would allow new parents to deduct major expenses for newborn children from their taxes, while providing few other details.

“Because we want more babies, to put it very nicely,” Mr. Trump said at a steel processing and distribution facility. He continued: “So we’re pro-family. Nobody’s ever said that before.”

Mr. Trump’s remarks fit a recent pattern of what appeared to be appeals aimed at women. Recent polling suggests Ms. Harris has made big gains among female voters in battleground states.

Mr. Trump’s stop in Potterville was the first of consecutive events in Midwest states that he won in 2016 but lost in 2020. In the evening, he traveled to La Crosse, Wis., for a town-hall event moderated by Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run and who endorsed Mr. Trump this week.

Mr. Trump largely repeated his campaign talking points as he took four questions from audience members and three from Ms. Gabbard, who opened the town hall by discussing her experience with in vitro fertilization.

Emily’s List, a group dedicated to electing female candidates and supporters of reproductive rights, assailed Mr. Trump’s latest overture toward women.

“Congratulations to Donald Trump for realizing that his position and his record on abortion are wildly unpopular, particularly with women who will decide this election,” Jessica Mackler, the group’s president, said in a statement.

Mr. Trump has been focusing on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — where he will hold a rally on Friday — with ads and campaign stops. The three states propelled him to the presidency in 2016 but swung toward President Biden in 2020.

Before Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from the race in late July, Mr. Trump had been polling tied or slightly ahead of him in those three states. But Ms. Harris’s taking his place on the Democratic ticket appears to have reshaped the political map. Mr. Trump trailed Ms. Harris in all three states in a poll conducted this month by The New York Times and Siena College.

Pete Hoekstra, Michigan’s Republican Party chairman, dismissed Ms. Harris’s polling bounce during an interview before Mr. Trump’s event in Potterville.

“You’ve seen them get a boost, but, you know, that’s not a surprise,” he said. “But I think it’s topped out.” He said the focus of the race was moving back from personalities to the issues, especially the economy and inflation.

During his Wisconsin town hall, Mr. Trump did spend some time discussing both issues. Still, he did not always directly answer questions. Asked by one woman what he might do to address her concern that her children were losing job opportunities because of illegal immigration, Mr. Trump didn’t offer specific plans, only saying he’d be “creating tremendous jobs” and that he’d close the border.

He also continued to portray Ms. Harris as a “Marxist” or “communist” and questioned Mr. Biden’s mental fitness. And at times, he used the questions as launching points to veer off topic.

Asked about Ms. Harris’s support for a federal ban on price-gouging, Mr. Trump criticized it but moved quickly to questioning her views on climate change, then arguing that Americans should be more concerned about “nuclear global warming” and the threat posed by nuclear weapons.