This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 14 episode of "The Beat with Ari Melber."
This election season, voters are deciding whether to put Donald Trump back in the White House. Many people know the downside of a second Trump administration, most know he welcomed a violent insurrection — even if many Republicans minimize it. Most people know he lies more than any public figure on record, even if some cynically defend that as just part of politics.
It’s certainly no secret that Trump has changed his position on big things, rather than advancing the same consistent view of policy. Just consider women’s rights and abortion, which is a larger issue than any other for voters right now, according to a new NBC News poll.
What really matters here? Is it a president’s personal beliefs — if they have them — or what they do? Or some combination?
That’s a response to Trump-appointed judges helping overturn Roe v. Wade, which led to abortion bans or restrictions in more than 20 states. Those are functionally Trump’s bans because his actions enabled them. He now touts ending Roe as his accomplishment and “honor” even though for most of his adult life he proclaimed himself to be “very pro-choice.” That is a major policy change.
On the same issue, President Joe Biden has also changed over time. In 2006, he told Texas Monthly he did not “view abortion as a choice and a right.” But then Biden’s position shifted. As president, he took administrative action to protect women’s rights after the Dobbs ruling. His Department of Justice is currently taking some red states to court to protect women using abortion medication and traveling for health care.
So what really matters here? Is it a president’s personal beliefs — if they have them — or what they do? Or some combination?
Biden is a lifelong practicing Catholic and that used to shape his policy stances more. Back in the 1970s — a very different time for women’s rights — he said he didn’t like the Roe decision because “it went too far.”
“I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body,” Biden told Washingtonian magazine in 1974.
Now, Biden still says he has a religious view on the topic but, as president of the whole country, he also thinks the Supreme Court precedent in Roe should have been upheld. Just last year he put it plainly, telling a crowd at a Maryland fundraising event, “I’m a practicing Catholic. I’m not big on abortion, but … Roe vs. Wade got it right.”
Biden says he is expressing a nuanced difference between his religious upbringing and his obligations as a leader. In a nation where there are many religious and spiritual views, there is no way to have one religion rule public policy for all.
While other candidates have emphasized that their religion would not dictate every decision in office, many voters have a common shorthand about choosing candidates whose personal beliefs supposedly should match their own.
However, it is worth noting a contrast here: Voters seek belief alignment with their chosen candidates but the power brokers and insiders who often run things do not do that. They use a very different lens. Many do not care what politicians personally believe — or even what they sometimes say. It’s only what they do in office that matters, and if it can be predicted or shaped.
So on the same issue of abortion, one of the most effective political operations in the U.S. is the anti-abortion movement’s effort to change the courts and the law. Despite Trump’s proclaimed or past beliefs on the issue, they did just that. They focused not on what Trump had said in the past, but whether they could get him to appoint anti-abortion judges if he won.
The leader of this effort is Leonard Leo, a conservative power broker who heads the Marble Freedom Trust and chairs the Federalist Society. Leo has been involved in every Republican Supreme Court pick in the modern era, deploying incredible wealth into these efforts. ProPublica calls him “The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority.” Leo largely moves behind the scenes, but I did ask him about this in an interview at Cornell Law School in 2019.
They focused not on what Trump had said in the past, but whether they could get him to appoint anti-abortion judges if he won.
Leo told me how he spoke to then-candidate Trump in 2016, who suggested he release a list of Supreme Court picks he would consider if elected. In an example of how power brokers work, Leo told me about how he handed then-candidate Trump a list of suggested names. When Trump released that list of Leo-handpicked judges to the public, he showed political insiders he could give them a plan, not a belief system.
This approach is not confined to any one issue. Other examples reveal how power brokers often look beyond the candidates’ “proclaimed values.” Just take tech billionaire Peter Thiel, an early Trump backer who spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Thiel hired and advanced Sen. JD Vance from employee to candidate to Trump endorsee. In 2021, he brought Vance to a meeting with the former president, helping the then-candidate secure Trump’s backing.
In order to score Trump’s endorsement, Vance had to reverse the core story he used to rise to national prominence, a book tour slamming Trump’s influence on the GOP. In a matter of months, Vance went from “Never Trump” to “Always Trump.” Some can view that as just a cynical part of politics but, for Vance backers, it shows the Ohio senator can be shaped into virtually anything.
That is the contrast at the heart of this year’s race and the reality of political beliefs in the MAGA era: Where some see a candidate’s malleability as a liability, power brokers see it as a bonus.