Donald Trump Acknowledges Misstep on Abortion Question

Donald J. Trump on Thursday allowed that he might have misspoken on the topic of abortion when he told the MSNBC host Chris Matthews that women who have abortions should face some form of punishment if the procedure is banned.

But he insisted the media attention to a misstep — amid the volume of questions he answers — gets outsize attention.

“If you answer one question inartfully or incorrectly in some form, or you misunderstood it or you misspoke, it ends up being a big story,” he said. “That doesn’t happen with other people.”

Mr. Trump made the comments in a brief phone interview about whether he takes at-times needless risks in his campaign.

“I think all politics is risk,” Mr. Trump said.

In the exchange with Mr. Matthews on Wednesday, the television host pressed Mr. Trump repeatedly on how he would handle punishments if abortion became illegal. Mr. Trump, who used to support abortion rights but in 2011 switched his position and said he had “evolved,” repeatedly tried to push past the question, but eventually said that there would have to be a punishment of some kind if abortion became illegal.

The outcry from both political parties was swift, and within three hours Mr. Trump issued a statement reversing course.

Asked whether the exchange with Mr. Matthews spoke to a lack of familiarity with how conservatives view abortion, he rejected that idea.

He said that it was an extensive back-and-forth with Mr. Matthews. “I was really talking about his religion,” Mr. Trump said, referring to a point in the exchange where he mentioned the Roman Catholic Church.

“I’m asked hundreds of questions a day,” he said. “You multiply that by months and months and months, and every once in awhile, if you misspeak — I was very focused on the topic of the Catholic Church.”

Mr. Trump added: “The difference is that if I say something that’s off, if I say something that’s off one way or another, it gets massive publicity. If somebody else does it, nobody cares.”