Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said he would “absolutely commit” not to enforce the federal abortion ban in two years after saying he wants “abortion to be illegal nationally.”
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Vance vouched for former President Donald Trump, telling Moderator Kristen Welker that he believes Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if elected president in the fall.
“I think he would,” Vance told Welker after she pressed him about his party’s efforts to pass a bill restricting abortion nationwide. “He said it outright that he would.”
“And to be clear, I think Donald Trump has stated his position and made it very clear. He wants this to be a state decision. The states will make this decision themselves,” he added, after Welker noted that Democrats have warned that Trump’s second term would lead to a national abortion ban.
Vance doubled down on the hypothetical bill, claiming the Republican Party doesn’t want an “empty federal conflict on this issue.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also appeared on “Meet the Press” and deplored Vance’s remarks that Trump would repeal the federal abortion ban if elected.
“American women are not stupid, and we are not going to trust the future of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about denying women access to abortion anywhere in this country,” Warren said.
In March, Trump suggested that he would support a national abortion ban at around 15 weeks of pregnancy, excluding cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.
“Weeks now agrees on 15, and I think about it, and it becomes something that makes a lot of sense,” he said on WABC’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning.” “But people are really – even the hardliners agree, it seems like 15 weeks, it seems like people agree.”
Then in April, he updated his stance, saying states should decide their own abortion laws.
