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Facing Criticism, Trump Says He Won't Ban Birth Control

US President Donald Trump addresses the annual March for Life rally, taking place on the National Mall, from the White House Rose Garden in Washington, US, January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/ File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
US President Donald Trump addresses the annual March for Life rally, taking place on the National Mall, from the White House Rose Garden in Washington, US, January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/ File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Facing Criticism, Trump Says He Won't Ban Birth Control

US President Donald Trump addresses the annual March for Life rally, taking place on the National Mall, from the White House Rose Garden in Washington, US, January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/ File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
US President Donald Trump addresses the annual March for Life rally, taking place on the National Mall, from the White House Rose Garden in Washington, US, January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/ File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Donald Trump said he does not support a ban on birth control, after coming under fire for comments he made earlier in the day that political opponents said suggested he would consider restricting contraceptives.

“I HAVE NEVER, AND WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL," the Republican presidential candidate said on his social media site, Truth Social.

Earlier on Tuesday, he was asked in an interview with KDKA News in Pittsburgh if he supported any restrictions on the right of people to use contraception.

“We’re looking at that,” he responded, “and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly, and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting.”

Asked if that included the so-called morning-after pill, Trump said, “Things really do have a lot to do with the states, and some states are going to have different policy than others."

The fight over reproductive rights is a flashpoint in the 2024 presidential race, Reuters reported. Opinion polls show most Americans don’t favor strict limits on those rights, and Democrats are hoping the issue will encourage millions of women and independents to vote their way.

Democrat Joe Biden's campaign swiftly posted Trump's response on social media platform X, contending that Trump had said he would restrict the pill's use.

Trump, in his social media response, said Democrats were lying about his stance.

Trump was not asked about limits on the abortion drug mifepristone, which is used as part of a two-drug regimen to end pregnancies and not as a contraceptive.

Trump has promised for weeks to release a policy about mifepristone with regard to its use in states that restrict surgical abortions. Medication abortion has become the most common method of ending pregnancies, now accounting for more than 60% of US abortions.

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UK’s Nigel Farage Says the West Provoked Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage delivers a speech at a hotel in Blackpool, northwestern England, on June 20, 2024, in the build-up to the UK general election on July 4. (AFP)
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage delivers a speech at a hotel in Blackpool, northwestern England, on June 20, 2024, in the build-up to the UK general election on July 4. (AFP)
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UK’s Nigel Farage Says the West Provoked Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage delivers a speech at a hotel in Blackpool, northwestern England, on June 20, 2024, in the build-up to the UK general election on July 4. (AFP)
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage delivers a speech at a hotel in Blackpool, northwestern England, on June 20, 2024, in the build-up to the UK general election on July 4. (AFP)

Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's right-wing Reform UK party, said the eastward of expansion of the European Union and NATO had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

The remarks, made in an interview with the BBC aired late on Friday, drew strong criticism across the British political spectrum ahead of a July 4 election in which Farage's party is predicted to win millions of votes.

Farage said he stood by comments made shortly after Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when he posted on social media that the move was a "consequence of EU and NATO expansion". He said he had been predicting a war in Ukraine as early as 2014.

"It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say, 'They're coming for us again' and to go to war," Farage said in Friday's BBC interview.

"We provoked this war ... of course it's his (Putin's) fault - he's used what we've done as an excuse."

Russia casts its special military operation in Ukraine as part of a broader struggle with the West, which it says wants to bring Russia to its knees. Kyiv and the West reject this and accuse Russia of waging an illegal war of conquest.

Farage's decades of campaigning against Britain's membership of the EU and mass immigration has made him one of the country's most recognizable and divisive politicians.

His surprise entry into the election race has further hit Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's hopes of closing the center-left Labour Party's opinion poll lead.

Even though Reform is unlikely to win many seats in parliament, it could split the right-of-center vote across the country. The party held only one seat in the last parliament, which it gained when a Conservative lawmaker defected.

Farage's remarks on Ukraine drew immediate condemnation.

Sunak said Farage was "completely wrong", accusing him of appeasement that put Britain and its allies' security at risk. Labour's defense spokesman John Healey called Farage's comments disgraceful and labelled him a "Putin apologist".

Farage later posted on X: "Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation, and the EU was wrong to expand eastward. The sooner we realize this, the closer we will be to ending the war and delivering peace."