During a segment on "Morning Joe," host Mika Brzezinski entered a heated discussion with GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie regarding the subject of late-term abortion on Thursday.
The dialogue became intense when Brzezinski stated that voluntary abortions at nine months are non-existent, which led to a contentious back-and-forth with Christie. The ex-governor of New Jersey contended that multiple Democrat-leaning states within the U.S. permit abortions to be carried out until the point of delivery.
“The one thing you keep saying is you keep talking about abortion in the ninth month, which is allowed in your state, and last time I asked you to like bring me the case where a woman walked into a doctor’s office in the ninth month and said, ‘I’ve decided that I don’t want to have a baby. Please take this out,'” Brzezinski said.
“It doesn’t happen. Less than one percent of abortions are performed after 21 weeks, and if there is a situation like that, it’s because there is a massive emergency. So I just think, of all the candidates, you’ve been the most honest about Trump and election integrity, but in this one respect, I have to call you out because you’re not being honest on the issue. We can debate abortion, but there isn’t abortion in the ninth month.”
“Mika, you’re the one who’s not being honest. I did not say there’s abortion in the ninth month. What I said was that the law in New Jersey and New York and Illinois and California permits it. And you can’t deny that that’s the truth because it is,” Christie said.
“It doesn’t happen, Chris,” Brzezinski said.
“So don’t call somebody a liar, don’t call —” Christie retorted.
“I’m not calling you a liar,” Brzezinski interrupted. “It’s not honest.”
“And by the way — no, no, Mika, nor did I say that it did,” Christie said.
“Let’s have an honest discussion about the issue,” the host fired back.
“Well, let’s have an honest discussion about the issue,” he said.
“But it doesn’t happen,” she said.
“Why don’t you answer my question? Does the law permit it in those states? Well that’s all I said,” Christie responded. “So I don’t understand what your problem is with that. In the end, if that’s what the law permits, that’s what the people who passed those laws said is okay, is legally permissible. That’s the point I’m making.”
The host from MSNBC expressed that for women, the issue of abortion is a deeply personal matter, not merely a political one, and mentioned that Republicans will "lose" on this topic without transparency.
“Mika, point out to me where I wasn’t honest. I said what the state of the law is. Now you want to deny that because you know it’s miserably unpopular for the state of the law to be in that position. But that’s what the state of the law is. Now you can argue about how many people are gonna take advantage of it or not, but I think it’s wrong for anybody to be able to take advantage of an abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy, and I think it’s wrong for the law to be there,” Christie continued.
Christie acknowledged his disagreement with Oklahoma's complete prohibition on abortion, which only makes an exception to save the mother's life. He argued that decisions on abortion legislation should be devolved to state governments rather than dictated by federal authorities.
Abortion was a pivotal issue in the recent elections in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia on Tuesday, where Democrats celebrated significant triumphs. In Ohio, voters passed a proposal to embed the right to abortion in the state constitution, effectively revoking the six-week ban.
