Former President Donald Trump has a problem. An incendiary lie is typically his first solution to any dilemma.

His messaging on abortion shows us that.

Trump likes to brag about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional protections for abortion in June 2022. But he knows from that year's midterm elections that the abortion ruling motivated angry voters eager to punish Republicans for it.

With the Republican National Convention starting this week in Milwaukee, Trump now insists abortion should be regulated by the states while denying accusations by Democrats that a second term for him would result in a national ban on abortion.

And there is Trump's problem: So many of his right-wing supporters demand a national ban on abortion and hate hearing Trump try to distance himself from it.

Trump's unhinged solution is to claim that President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party advocate for abortion available, "even after birth."

That's not true. But Trump's most loyal supporters have shown us they don't care about truth if you feed them incendiary lies they want to swallow. And this Trump lie, which he has trotted out repeatedly since 2016, plays well with them and maybe takes the heat off him with the right-wingers.

Trump went back to that lie during the debate last month, saying this about Democrats while standing on stage with Biden: "The problem they have is they're radical, because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after........

© USA TODAY