“He keeps shitting all over his greatest accomplishment. When you speak to him, it’s the response of someone fearing the backlash and fearing the politics of what happens when conservatives actually get what they want [on abortion],” says one source who has talked to Trump about this in the weeks following the SCOTUS draft opinion leak. “I do not think he’s enjoying the moment as much as many of his supporters are, to be honest with you.”

Trump has private remarked that if Republicans wanted to be “really smart” during the 2022 midterm elections, the party focus on Democrats and “late-term abortions” while steering clear of markedly less popular conservative positions on the issue, according to another person who spoke to the ex-president in the past two months…

In May, Trump privately complained to allies that he worried the Republicans extreme position on abortion would hurt his position with suburban women. A source told Rolling Stone that Trump was “worried women in the suburbs could punish him for this one day.” The New York Times’ Maggie Habberman reported Friday that following the release of the Dobbs decision Trump privately told allies that the fallout from the end of Roe would be “bad for Republicans.” Haberman also reported on Friday that “Trump also described the Texas six-week ban and citizen lawsuit measure ‘so stupid,’ according a person with direct knowledge of the comment.”