Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the preparations, personnel decisions and policy deliberations of Donald Trump’s transition. POLITICO Pro subscribers receive a version of this newsletter first. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Megan DONALD TRUMP ran on a pledge to leave abortion policy up to states, a posture that helped him retain just enough support from moderate women who opposed the loss of Supreme Court protections for the procedure to clinch his November victory. His White House win may not have been possible without voters who simultaneously supported abortion access in statewide ballot initiatives. But groups on both sides of the abortion wars — as well as medical providers around the country — are confident he won’t keep the federal government out of abortion policy. And given anticipated actions by Congress, the courts and his own Cabinet, he may not have a choice. Trump is set to inherit from the Biden administration several federal cases that could directly impact where and how millions of women can access abortions. Trump’s Justice Department will have to decide whether to continue these lawsuits as-is, switch sides or drop them altogether. Rather than waiting to find out, St. Luke’s hospital in Boise, Idaho, filed its own lawsuit this week arguing that the state's abortion ban conflicts with federal protections for emergency room patients — and its lawyers explicitly said they're doing so because they expect Trump to drop the lawsuit that JOE BIDEN’s Justice Department has been fighting on the issue for more than a year. While the Biden administration won an injunction stopping Idaho from enforcing its ban in emergency circumstances, which the Supreme Court left in place when it punted on the case last year, the hospital’s lawyers said they intervened out of fear the Trump’s administration won’t stay the course on the case. The Republican majority in Congress is also planning to send Trump a bill that would mandate doctors take particular measures if a woman gives birth following an unsuccessful abortion, and they’re also expected to pursue a wide range of federal restrictions on the procedure in upcoming spending fights. Speaker MIKE JOHNSON and Trump’s allies at the Department of Government Efficiency have held up eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, for example, as a priority. While the Senate has blocked these measures in the past, it’s unclear if its expanded GOP majority will continue to do so or send them to Trump’s desk. Trump has also nominated a slew of officials with records of opposing abortion to lead various federal agencies, and the anti-abortion groups that helped him win the election are expecting his Cabinet to deliver for them. They’re anticipating a blitz of executive orders that roll back Biden-era policies that expanded abortion access, reimpose restrictions from Trump’s first administration and target the few ways women in red states are continuing to terminate pregnancies — from seeking care in emergency rooms to ordering pills online and receiving them by mail. “Abortion is federal, and to think that we're done with it at the federal level is not to understand how federal it is,” said KRISTI HAMRICK, a vice president at Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion group holding a summit in D.C. a couple days after Trump’s inauguration. “It’s a fundamental human rights question.” The Trump transition declined to answer West Wing Playbook’s questions about the specific abortion policies they are expected to unveil next week, but spokeswoman KAROLINE LEAVITT said in a statement that Trump “has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion” and that the public “can bank on President Trump using his executive power on day one to deliver on the promises he made to them on the campaign trail.” Trump’s myriad campaign trail promises were not specific on how he would or would not wield executive power on abortion. So as the Senate embarks on hearings for a dozen Trump nominees this week, groups on both sides of the issue are watching closely for clues on how far the incoming president’s picks would be willing to go to impose curbs on the procedure. AMY WILLIAMS NAVARRO, director of government relations with Reproductive Freedom for All, said her team is paying particular attention to Attorney General nominee PAM BONDI, who opposed abortion rights in her past role as Florida’s attorney general, and Secretary of State nominee MARCO RUBIO, who repeatedly voted for national abortion restrictions as a senator. In her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Bondi declined to commit to defending federal regulations allowing abortion pills to be prescribed by telehealth and delivered by mail — another ongoing legal battle the Trump administration is inheriting — saying only that she would “not let my personal beliefs affect how I carry out the law." Both pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion activists also have their eyes on HHS Secretary nominee ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., who has at times supported unrestricted access to the procedure but since being nominated has promised senators he will implement several anti-abortion executive orders. “In the sense that personnel is policy, we are taking these appointments as a signal that the administration will definitely be going back on their promise to leave abortion to the states,” Navarro said. MESSAGE US — Are you MARCO RUBIO? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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