Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday took direct credit for the Supreme Court overturning its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling and ending the national right to an abortion.

I was able to terminate Roe v. Wade, said Trump, the current Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, during a CNN town hall event.

It wasnt the first time Trump had claimed responsibility for last years decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, but it was his most explicit assertion in that vein to date on national TV.

Amid all of the lies , excusals for insurrectionists , and mockery of the woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting, Trumps statement about Roe on the CNN stage is likely to stand as the defining moment in his first foray out of the conservative media ecosystem for the 2024 election cycle.

The courts decision in Dobbs is broadly unpopular and proved a catalyst for Democrats surprise success in the 2022 midterm elections, as they hammered Republicans for endorsing abortion bans. The Democratic National Committee blasted out Trumps remarks to its press list as the Key Clip of the night, with DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison doing much the same on Twitter .

Trump knows this, but hes stuck between a rock and a hard place. The anti-abortion wing of the GOP is significant in size and influence, and Trump needed its support in 2016. He promised to nominate judges who would overturn Roe and he later delivered, with three justices voting to do just that. But now, many Republicans are demanding that elected officials ban abortions nationwide at the very least after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Earlier this year, anti-abortion activists had voiced concern after the former president said the issue should be left to the states. Marjorie Dannenfelser, who heads Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and other abortion opponents met with Trump in recent days to head off any rift on the issue. Dannenfelser, whose group is demanding all GOP presidential candidates endorse a nationwide abortion ban, described the meeting as terrific.