Sen. J.D. Vance says he won’t try to speak for Donald Trump in the future after the vice presidential nominee expressed a contradicting viewpoint on a federal abortion ban.
The admission came after a moment at Tuesday’s debate where the former president broke with his running mate and said they have not yet discussed a veto on banning abortion at a national level.
‘I think that I’ve learned my lesson on speaking for the president before he and I have actually talked about an issue,’ Vance said in an interview with Meet the Press host Kristen Welker on Sunday morning.
The Ohio Senator said his point last month was to reiterate that Trump has been clear he does not support the idea of a national ban – but that he also thinks the issue would never cross his desk because it wouldn’t get through Congress in the first place.
Sen. J.D. Vance says he ‘learned my lesson’ about speaking publicly for Donald Trump before they spoke specifically about an issue after he said the former president would veto a national abortion bill if it hit his desk
Asked at the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday if he would veto a bill putting a federal ban on abortions, Trump was noncommittal.
‘I won’t have to,’ he insisted.
But when the ABC debate moderator Linsey Davis pressed him on Vance’s remarks just weeks earlier, the ex-president broke with his running mate
‘I didn’t discuss it with J.D. in all fairness,’ Trump said on stage. ‘J.D. – and I don’t mind if he has a certain view – but I think he was speaking for me. But I really didn’t.’
Harris’s campaign hopped on Vance’s latest remarks as proof that Trump would actually veto the ban – despite the senator repeatedly claiming to the contrary.
‘Donald Trump and JD Vance are running on the most extreme, anti-choice ticket in history,’ Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Sarafina Chitik wrote in a statement on the interview.
‘Today’s admission from Vance is the latest proof of what voters already know: Trump and Vance will implement their Project 2025 playbook to ban abortion nationwide the minute they get the chance,’ she added. ‘Trump and Vance can say whatever suits them, but their records speak louder than their lies – voters will hold them accountable this November.’
Vance said in an August interview with Welker that he ‘thinks’ Trump would not sign a bill regulating pregnancy terminations at the national level. And he reiterated on Sunday that a ‘national abortion ban is not on the table.’
‘I think he’s been clear, he wouldn’t support it. I mean he said that explicitly,’ the Republican vice presidential nominee said last month.
‘I mean if you’re not supporting it as President of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it,’ he added.
Trump was noncommittal at Tuesday’s debate with Kamala Harris when asked if he would veto an abortion ban – but maintained that he does not support the idea of regulating pregnancy termination on a federal level
Trump defends picking J.D. Vance as his running mate
Pressed for a final time on whether Trump would veto the proposal, Vance said at the time: ‘I think he would. He said that explicitly that he would.’
Now, Vance is walking that back but maintaining that the GOP 2024 ticket is not in favor of a national abortion ban.
‘We hadn’t discussed it. We still haven’t discussed it, by the way. Because it’s not realistic,’ Vance said on Sunday.
‘He’s been incredibly clear that he doesn’t support a national abortion ban,’ the senator said of Trump. ‘He wants abortion policy to be made by the states. Because he thinks, look, Alabama is going to make a different decision from California and that’s OK. We’re a big country, we can disagree.’
‘I think President Trump has been clear – a national abortion ban is not on the table. He wouldn’t support it, he wouldn’t sign it,’ Vance concluded.
