Donald Trump's wild IVF 'father' brags at Fox News town hall on women's issues.

That is Totally normal quote of the daya function that highlights a statement from the news that is currently illustrating how extremely normal everything has become.

“I am the father of IVF.” – Donald Trump speaks at a town hall event about women on Fox News.

It took about 45 minutes for Donald Trump's town hall meeting in Georgia to turn to women's reproductive health issues. The recorded event aired on Fox News on Wednesday The Faulkner Focus With Harris Faulkner, he had studied illegal immigration and “migrant crime” as well as transgender athletes, energy production, inflation and the government's response to hurricanes. When the issue of abortion rights finally came up, Trump stuck to his established argument: he simply supported what “all” “major” legal scholars thought was best, namely leaving the decision to the states. In fact, he said, he thinks some states' abortion laws are “too strict” and need to be “revised.” It was an attempt to soften his party's weakest issue — and hopefully erase voters' memories of his commitment to a nationwide abortion ban and punishment of women who have abortions. (Trump recently said he would veto a nationwide abortion ban.)

The conversation then turned to in vitro fertilization. When Faulkner suggested that IVF would be the topic of the next question, Trump chimed in, “Ah, I want to talk about IVF.” The crowd laughed politely and Trump said three times, “I'm the father of IVF.”

It was a strange claim, considering IVF wasn't exactly one of his favorite topics. In fact, he only expressed his support for IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos should legally be considered children, citing the fetal personhood language in Alabama law. Then, when IVF centers closed in the state, there was a massive national outcry and the Republican Party scrambled to recover. Trump stated he supported access to IVF; He recently floated the idea of ​​having the costs of the treatments covered by the state or private insurers.

After the “Father of IVF” remark, an audience member asked about Trump's stance on IVF and what he would say to women who were concerned that abortion bans could jeopardize their access to fertility treatments. In response, Trump said that “we're really the party of IVF” and that “the Democrats have tried to attack us on that, and we're out there on IVF, even more so than they are.” It's possible that this will happen Reference refers to his dubious claim that he can perform IVF for free.

To anyone who can remember anything before this election cycle, it is clear that his claim is absurd: subversion Roe v. Wade— something Trump has long promoted on the campaign trail and often embraced — is what put IVF in jeopardy in the first place. His entire party is implicated in the IVF threat. Twice this year, Senate Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to enshrine a right to IVF, criticizing the bills as unnecessary sensationalism.

But there's another reason to question his new, self-granted title: He appears to have said he didn't know what IVF was before the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. This is how he began his answer to the IVF question:

So I got a call from Katie Britt, a young, incredibly attractive person from Alabama. She is a senator. And she called me and said, “Emergency, emergency!” because a judge in Alabama had ruled that the IVF clinics were illegal and had to be closed – a judge ruled. And she said, “Friends of mine came up to me and they were, oh, they were so angry. I didn't even know they were going.” You know, they were – it's fertilization. I didn't know they were even involved – no one talks about it. They don't talk about it. But now that they can't, she said, “I was attacked.” In a way, “I was attacked.” And I said, “Explain IVF very quickly.” And within about two minutes I understood. I said, “No, no, we're all for IVF.” I made a statement within an hour, a really powerful statement from some experts, really powerful.

It's a bold strategy to answer a question about access to reproductive health care by first describing a senator as “fantastically attractive” and then admitting a lack of prior knowledge of the issue's existence. (He's at least doing better than some other members of his party; last week, Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake repeatedly called the treatment “UVF.”) But history shows that courage often works for him. We'll have to wait and see if he comes up with any fun new nicknames at the town hall for Latino voters that airs Wednesday Night.