President Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General faces a confirmation challenge from a Republican senator for promising pro-life priorities.
“I have carefully reviewed Todd Blanche’s qualifications to be Attorney General … I will vote against this nomination,” Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins said in an X post Tuesday. Among her reasons for opposing Blanche’s confirmation include him “promis[ing] an anti-abortion organization that he would seek to prohibit the mailing of abortion medication to women nationwide.”
Collins’ post came after Blanche reportedly promised to achieve policy solutions that would make the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs Decision — which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 — “permanent in every single state” during a conference call with the White House Faith Office on July 30. The call recording was later removed from YouTube.
Collins’ office, the White House, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Some pro-life groups applauded some of Blanche’s recent stances surrounding abortion.
“During Acting Attorney [General] Blanche’s hearing, a majority of GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee pressed him on abortion drugs, uncomfortable with the continuation of Biden’s illegal mail-order abortion drug regime and the Department of Justice’s opposition in court to pro-life states challenging the scheme,” SBA Pro-Life America stated in a press release Tuesday.
SBA added that Blanche “was right when he said, ‘We very much believe the Biden rules were wrong.’ We thank pro-life senators for questioning Acting AG Blanche, and urge the Acting AG to swiftly settle the case with Louisiana and abortion drug coercion survivor Rosalie Markezich to immediately get abortion drugs out of the mail while the FDA’s safety study continues.”
The Republican-controlled Congress failed to extend its funding freeze for Planned Parenthood on July 4, which was part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, the DCNF previously reported.
Collins also said in the post that she opposes Blanche’s confirmation for approving an order to “shield” President Trump and his family from Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit, the creation of a roughly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, and because the DOJ under his leadership “attempted to indict” Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin over their “ill-advised, but constitutionally protected, videos encouraging resistance to unlawful orders.”
Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis were also hesitant to vote for Blanche’s confirmation over the potential IRS protections and the anti-weaponization fund. However, they voted “yes” on Tuesday after the DOJ provided them documents assuring them that their concerns were resolved.
Collins faces Democratic nominee Troy Jackson in Maine’s 2026 Senate Election this November.
(DCNF)