Trump’s plan to address the marchers via video is a departure from the precedent he set by making an in-person appearance at the march in 2020 and reflects the distance that he put between himself and the anti-abortion movement in the past election cycle.

“We are thrilled that Vice President Vance has chosen the National March for Life for his first public appearance in his new role – a sign of his commitment to standing up for life,” Jeanne Mancini and Jennie Bradley Lichter, the march’s outgoing president and president-elect, respectively, said in a statement. “Trump governed as a pro-life president during his first term which resulted in a long list of accomplishments.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told reporters Thursday that the president will address the demonstrators via video.

Trump was the first president to attend a March for Life event, leading some in the anti-abortion movement to declare him the most pro-life president in history.

But during the 2024 presidential campaign, the first presidential election since the overturning of the 1972 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that found a constitutional right to abortion, Trump backed away from anti-abortion rhetoric. He even took a strong hand in excising anti-abortion language and policy proposals from the national Republican Party platform.

Mancini told the Washington Examiner in an interview prior to the announcement of Trump’s video address that she “certainly was not happy with some of the comments made on the campaign trail” but that the first Trump administration increased the reach of the March for Life and anti-abortion movement writ large.

“President Trump was the first president in American history to come to the March for Life, the first president to ever send a standing vice president to the March for Life,” Mancini said. “We weren’t on the world stage to the same extent until Trump and Vice President Pence made March for Life a matter of importance.”

This year, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) are among the other notable speakers who will attend the event in person.

The march will take place Friday afternoon on the National Mall.