Donald Trump, the human embodiment of halitosis, was grilled by Chris Matthews on a range of topics this afternoon during a pre-taped MSNBC town hall event. The big headline was his response on the issue of abortion, a topic Trump has wavered upon his entire public life. But he didn't waver today: he told Matthews he is now pro-life and believes that abortion should be made illegal, even if that means "you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places, but we have to ban it."

Despite trying to turn the tables on Matthews by asking him about his beliefs (and his church's position), Matthews pressed further on the topic, and Trump said that "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who get illegal abortions (which, in Trump's vision of his presidency, would be every woman who gets an abortion). He didn't specify what kind of punishment that may entail, but asked whether men who participated in these abortions would also be punished, Trump said no.

Donald Trump says “there has to be some form of punishment” for illegal abortions https://t.co/3LljoWUhE5 — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 30, 2016

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both jumped on his answer.

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. Horrific and telling. -H https://t.co/Qi8TutsOw9 — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 30, 2016

Your Republican frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. Shameful. https://t.co/y49Z8YfRgV — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 30, 2016

His own team also immediately tried to throw water on what will likely be regarded as a dumpster fire of a comment—even most Republicans favor making it a crime for doctors to perform the procedure, rather than punishing the women who receive the procedure.

Trump campaign just issued a statement on his comments to Chris Matthews about abortion. pic.twitter.com/tZul1qdY22 — Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) March 30, 2016

And then he either clarified or contradicted himself in his next statement, depending on how you look at it:

the new Donald-Trump-cleaning-up-something-he-just-said is out: pic.twitter.com/AxEN3WnSeH — Colin Campbell (@BKcolin) March 30, 2016

It's hard to piss off pro-lifers AND pro-choicers simultaneously, you really have to be a special kind of idiot https://t.co/ySZAbcF1OC — Dan Amira (@DanAmira) March 30, 2016

While Trump has been open about his evolution to a pro-life stance in the past year, back in January he was still doing everything he could to deflect on the specifics of the topic:

And back in 1999, when he was toying for an independent presidential run, Trump was adamantly pro-choice (he explained that his view may stem from "a little bit of a New York background"):

While this might be the kind of issue that finally stops some of the Trump momentum—as FiveThirtyEight put it, there's no better way to lose the 2016 election than by alienating women voters—it also has serious ramifications for his, um, potential "policies."

ALSO: Trump told me at his last press avail that he would use abortion as a litmus test for his SCOTUS nominees. — Ali Vitali (@alivitali) March 30, 2016

Punishing women who have abortions means punishing poor, minority moms. https://t.co/sEqwSqDAFt pic.twitter.com/jyIcOLxXIe — Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) March 30, 2016

This wasn't the only Trump controversy today: a 15-year-old girl was pepper sprayed and sexually assaulted by two Trump supporters outside of a Trump rally yesterday in Janesville, Wisconsin. Gawker pointed to partial video of the incident, which you can see below: