--- title: Donald Trump's Allies Defend Him After Abortion Comments description: They said he misspoke about women deserving "some form of punishment." canonical: https://time.com/4277698/donald-trump-abortion-christie-carson/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-31T14:51:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:46:17.551Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump's Allies and Former Rivals Defend Him After Abortion Comments og:description: They say it's fine, he misspoke about women deserving "some form of punishment" og:url: https://time.com/4277698/donald-trump-abortion-christie-carson/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted00d77a8a0ff7cd/69888d22cf40a81afec429a8/trump-matthews-abortion-comments-defend.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5760 og:image:height: 3240 og:image:alt: trump matthews abortion comments defend og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump's Allies and Former Rivals Defend Him After Abortion Comments twitter:description: They say it's fine, he misspoke about women deserving "some form of punishment" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted00d77a8a0ff7cd/69888d22cf40a81afec429a8/trump-matthews-abortion-comments-defend.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump's Allies and Former Rivals Defend Him After Abortion Comments > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Mar 31, 2016 2:51 PM UTC  Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump films a town hall meeting for MSNBC with Chris Matthews on March 30. Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump films a town hall meeting for MSNBC with Chris Matthews on March 30. Tom Lynn—Getty Images  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Mar 31, 2016 2:51 PM UTC Donald Trump’s allies defended him on Wednesday after the Republican frontrunner walked back [his comments about women](http://time.com/4276862/donald-trump-abortion-ban-punishment/) deserving “some form of punishment” for undergoing abortions. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told [WKXW New Jersey](http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/03/30/christie-trump-abortion/) that Trump “obviously misspoke” about punishing women for abortion, and the Trump campaign statement released later on Wednesday — that physicians should receive any punishment for performing abortions if they were made illegal — is correct. “Well listen, I think everybody in public life misspeaks,” Christie said. “My point is that he’s no different than everybody else running. When you have a microphone in front of you, you know, a lot of times a day, every day, there are going to be times when you’re going to misspeak.” Ben Carson, a surgeon, also chalked the former television show host’s initial comments up to inexperience with the media. “Bear in mind, I don’t believe that he was warned that that question was coming, and I don’t think he really had a chance to really think about it,” [Carson told CNN Wednesday](http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/30/politics/ben-carson-donald-trump-abortion/index.html).”That happens very frequently, and you know, what you develop with experience is how to answer that in a way that is not definitive.” Political commentator Ann Coulter, who took issue with Trump retweeting a photo of Heidi Cruz last week, tweeted in the candidate’s defense overnight. > [](https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/715427122399940608) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4277698/donald-trump-abortion-christie-carson/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4277698/donald-trump-abortion-christie-carson/"},"headline":"Donald Trump's Allies and Former Rivals Defend Him After Abortion Comments","datePublished":"2016-03-31T14:51:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:46:17.551Z","description":"They said he misspoke about women deserving \"some form of punishment\"","url":"https://time.com/4277698/donald-trump-abortion-christie-carson/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted00d77a8a0ff7cd/69888d22cf40a81afec429a8/trump-matthews-abortion-comments-defend.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blted00d77a8a0ff7cd/69888d22cf40a81afec429a8/trump-matthews-abortion-comments-defend.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"trump matthews abortion comments defend","caption":"trump matthews abortion comments defend","creditText":"Tom Lynn—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4277698/donald-trump-abortion-christie-carson/","name":"Donald Trump's Allies and Former Rivals Defend Him After Abortion Comments"}}]}] ```