Former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, withdrew on Sunday comments he said in August that Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if it came to his desk.
“I learned my lesson about speaking for the president before he and I actually talked about an issue,” Vance told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” days after Trump publicly said he never discussed anything with Vance. if the abortion ban crossed his desk as president, he would.
“I haven’t discussed it with JD, to be honest,” Trump he said during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday. “And I don’t mind if he has a certain point of view, but I don’t think he speaks for me.”
In the debate, the former president said that if Harris is elected, Roe v. It won’t get a chance to codify Wade because Congress “could never ratify it. So it doesn’t matter what he says about going to Congress. Awesome. Let’s go to Congress.”
“He can’t get votes. He won’t even come close to it,” Trump added.
Harris’ assessment of his chances of passing legislation to restore federal protections for abortion that existed before the Supreme Court struck them down in 2022 also applies to Republican hopes of passing any abortion ban.
Unless a future Senate Republican majority fundamentally changes Senate rules and eliminates the filibuster, any such legislation would be unlikely to pass the Senate without a Republican majority.
On Sunday, Vance echoed Trump’s words, telling moderator Kristen Welker that she and Trump “haven’t discussed it yet, by the way, because it’s not real.”
The Ohio senator called any question about a federal abortion ban “kind of a ridiculous assumption,” adding that “if a national abortion ban were brought to the U.S. Senate right now, it would get 10 out of 100 senators at best.”
Vance also said that Trump has been “incredibly clear that he does not support a national abortion ban. He wants abortion policy to be carried out by the states.”