Mitch McConnell refuses to say whether he supports a US national abortion ban

Asked whether he supports a federal abortion ban, US Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that he is “not advocating anything at this level”.

The Republican, during remarks in a new interview published by NBC’s Meet the Press, stopped short of saying whether or not he supported a 15-week federal ban on abortion with exceptions, but he instead portrayed the issue as “a practical matter” that was too divisive among federal lawmakers to result in a consensus among them.

Related: Republicans divided over Arizona near-total abortion ban, poll shows

Alluding to comments from 2022 in which he said a national ban was “possible”, McConnell said, “I said it was possible. I didn’t say that was my view. I just said it was possible.”

Meet the Press host Kristen Welker pressed McConnell to explain if he supported a federal ban, prompting the Kentucky senator to reply: “The reason I said it was possible is because the supreme court has put this back into the legislative arena. And we’re seeing it play out all across the country. And I think in the end, it’ll reflect the views of these individual states. But I said: ‘Possible’. I didn’t say that was my view.

“I don’t think we’ll get 60 votes in the Senate for any kind of national legislation,” he continued, referring to the number of votes needed to end the debate on bills in the Senate and get a vote on them. “I think it’s a practical matter. It’s gonna be sorted out at the state level.”

McConnell went on to reaffirm that he believes the issue of abortion access is one that should be decided by individual states after the US supreme court’s decision in 2022 to eliminate the federal abortion rights once established by the Roe v Wade case.

“I’m not advocating anything at this level,” he said. “It seems to me views about this issue at the state level vary depending where you are. And we get elected by states. And my members are smart enough to figure out how they want to deal with this very divisive issue based upon the people who actually send them here.”

McConnell said he also does not think legislation seeking to federalize abortion rights would get the 60 votes it would need to be voted on in the Senate either.

In 2022, South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham proposed a federal ban that would prohibit abortions after 15 weeks. Following Graham’s proposal at the time, McConnell told reporters: “With regard to his bill, you’ll have to ask him about it. In terms of scheduling, I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level.”

McConnell’s latest interview comes after the supreme court recently heard an abortion rights case centering on how states can decide when to permit emergency abortions. The case involves Idaho, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans and only permits doctors to perform an abortion to save the patient’s life. However, under federal law, doctors are required to stabilize patients’ health if either their life or limb is threatened.

The conservative-majority US supreme court, which appeared divided as of Wednesday, is expected to rule on the case in June.