Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance declined to answer on Sunday whether former president Donald Trump would veto a national abortion ban, saying he’s learned his “lesson” on speaking for his running mate.
In an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker last month, Vance said Trump would not support a federal abortion ban and even veto such a bill if it came to his desk should he be reelected.
During last Tuesday’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, however, Trump dodged whether he would veto a national abortion. “Well, I won’t have to,” Trump replied, saying it would not get enough votes to pass Congress anyway. Though he didn’t directly answer the veto question, Trump confirmed he wouldn’t sign one.
When pressed on the matter by ABC News moderator Linsey Davis, Trump appeared to distance himself from his running mate’s previous comments. “Well, I didn’t discuss it with J.D. in all fairness. I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I think he was speaking for me,” the Republican presidential nominee said on the national stage.
Now, in a new interview with Welker on Sunday morning, Vance said he “still hasn’t discussed” the veto issue with the former president because it’s “not realistic.”
“I think that was the point that he made during the debate, and he’s been incredibly clear that he doesn’t support a national abortion ban,” the Ohio senator said of Trump on NBC’s Meet the Press. “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 okay. We’re a big country. We can disagree.”
Vance went on to say that states should decide their own abortion policies. Trump has repeatedly said such legislation should be left to individual states now that Roe v. Wade no longer exists, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision.
“I think President Trump has been clear a national abortion ban is not on the table. He wouldn’t support it. He wouldn’t . . . he wouldn’t sign it,” Vance said. “And I think, frankly, Kristen, it’s kind of a ridiculous hypothetical because, if a national abortion ban was brought before the United States Senate right now, it would get, at best, 10 senators out of the 100.”
“His point is that it was a hypothetical and not a hypothetical that has any chance of actually crossing his desk,” he continued.
Pressed again on whether Trump would veto a hypothetical national abortion ban, Vance said, “I’ve learned my lesson on speaking for the president” before the two have discussed the issue together.
“What he has said at the debate, which is quite explicit, is he doesn’t support a national ban,” Vance concluded. “He thinks it’s ridiculous to talk about vetoing a piece of legislation that isn’t going to come before the president in the first place.”