Following reporting from CNN on Trump’s pick for solicitor general, John Sauer, DNC Rapid Response Spokesperson Aida Ross released the following statement:

“Donald Trump picked a solicitor general modeled after his own extreme, anti-choice record – and with ties to Trump’s disastrous Project 2025 agenda that would threaten access to everything from IVF to contraception. John Sauer’s anti-choice extremism is as unpopular as it is dangerous, and Democrats are ready to fight back against this all-out assault on our rights.”

Trump’s choice for solicitor general, John Sauer, is a Project 2025-linked extremist who’s fought against reproductive freedoms and basic rights like marriage equality.

CNN: “The nominee for US solicitor general has opposed abortion rights, birth-control access and same-sex marriage. He backed efforts to overturn Trump’s election defeat in 2020 […]

“During Sauer’s time as Missouri solicitor general, a state health director reportedly gathered information on menstrual cycles and pregnancies. The information emerged in a 2019 hearing over the state’s effort to deny Planned Parenthood a license to perform abortions.

“This year, according to Missouri Ethics Commission figures, Sauer contributed $777,000 to the Missouri Right to Life political action committee and two other groups opposed to a ballot measure, known as Amendment 3, to ensure abortion rights in the state. […]

“From 2017 to 2023, Sauer served as the Missouri state solicitor, first taking the position at the urging of then attorney general (and now US senator) Josh Hawley. He joined with other Republican-run states in briefs to the high court against federal Covid vaccine mandates for certain health care workers and against abortion rights, including in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that led to the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022.”

Heritage Foundation: “Project 2025 Reaches 100 Coalition Partners, Continues to Grow in Preparation for Next President … Ethics and Public Policy Center”

Ethics and Public Policy Center: “On July 20, our attorney John Sauer—a brilliant legal mind and a force of nature in the courtroom—testified before a Congressional hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.”

Sauer’s record is in line with Trump and Project 2025’s calls to defund Planned Parenthood and use reproductive health data to monitor pregnancies. 

Rolling Stone: “Trump and Vance Have Backed States That Want to Surveil Pregnant Women”

“Trump and his vice presidential pick are now both saying abortion should be left up to the states, even though they both previously signaled support for national bans. They have also, alarmingly, both suggested they would be OK with states moving to surveil women’s pregnancies.

“In May, a host at WGAL, an NBC affiliate in Pennsylvania, noted to Trump that there were ads running that suggested he would support certain states with bans monitoring women’s pregnancies. ‘Well, that would be up to the states, again,’ Trump responded…

“Vance, an Ohio senator, has gone further. Last summer, he signed onto a congressional letter calling on the Biden administration to withdraw a draft rule designed to prevent police in states with abortion bans from using personal health information to track and potentially charge people who travel to other states for abortion care.”

Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, p. 497: “OCR should withdraw its Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidance on abortion. OCR should withdraw its June 2022 guidance that purports to address patient privacy concerns following the Dobbs decision but is actually a politicized statement in favor of abortion and against Dobbs. HIPAA covers patients in the womb, but this guidance treats them as nonpersons contrary to law. The guidance is unnecessary and contributes to ideologically motivated fearmongering about abortion after Dobbs.”

Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, page 471: “Prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds … Policymakers should end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood.” 

Trump’s new administration is full of Project 2025 extremists that would ban abortion nationwide, threaten access to IVF and contraception, and rip away reproductive freedoms.

Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”

Trump: “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life. And it’s very important.”

Trump: “There has to be some form of punishment [for women who have an abortion].”

Interviewer: “There are ads running that say that you would support certain states with bans monitoring a woman’s pregnancy.”

Trump: “Well that would be up to the states, again. They will make a decision as to how they do it.”

Washington Post: “Vance urged DOJ to enforce Comstock Act, crack down on abortion pills”

New Republic: “On January 20, 2025, conservatives plan to resurrect a 150-year-old defunct law to ban abortion across the nation. This is not a secret plan—far from it. It’s part of the 180-Day Playbook produced by Project 2025, detailing priorities for an incoming conservative president on day one.” 

Politico: “Anti-abortion advocates worked for five decades to topple Roe v. Wade. They’re now laying the groundwork for a yearslong fight to curb in vitro fertilization.

“Since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups have been strategizing how to convince not just GOP officials but evangelicals broadly that they should have serious moral concerns about fertility treatments like IVF and that access to them should be curtailed.”

Politico: “[Project 2025] also proposes increasing surveillance of abortion and maternal mortality reporting in the states, compelling the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of ‘chemical abortion drugs’ and protecting ‘religious and moral’ objections for employers who decline contraception coverage for employees.”

CBS News: “In recommendations for the Department of Health and Human Services, [Project 2025] calls for the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its 24-year-old approval of the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.”

Washington Post: “The [Project 2025] document, compiled with multiple people and groups who worked in and with the Trump administration, calls for erasing terms including ‘abortion,’ ‘reproductive health,’ ‘gender’ and ‘gender equality’ from ‘every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.’”