Even supporters of Trump routinely say that you shouldn't take him on face value, vis-a-vis tariffs, etc. Why should I take what he said about 2025 seriously? His son and VP are absolutely aligned with the goals of the Heritage Foundation.

It's exactly what he did with Roe, trusted and subsequently empowered people whose ideology is stronger and, frankly, unaligned with his and look what happened.

Dobbs didn't happen because Trump got hoodwinked by a bunch of social conservatives. Maybe I'm retconning this in my brain but overturning Roe has been a thing with the GOP for a long time, Trump always said he was going to appoint conservative judges and justices, and he's said since that he'd veto a national abortion ban.

It's unfortunate that on this issue most of the GOP is in the "never, ever" camp and most of the left is in the "any time, any place, for any reason" camp. We'd be much better off as a country if we allowed it before ~20 weeks electively, disallowed it after ~20 weeks unless the mother is about to die, and just moved on. That would keep us more liberal on this issue than 99% of Europe, still protect people from unplanned pregnancy, and result in net fewer abortions in the US.

Trump had no actual interest in who he nominated, he just followed the guidelines of organizations like Heritage. That's my point: Trump does not have an interrogative bone in his body and he can be manipulated into making decisions by much smarter people that are thinking multiple steps ahead of him.