NBC News published an interesting report in March on Donald Trump’s search for a new running mate and the importance the former president had placed on abortion rights.
The Republican, the report noted, was “laser-focused on the abortion issue, especially when it comes to his vice presidential pick,” mindful of the Democratic advantage on the issue. NBC News quoted a source close to Trump saying, “He’s concerned it will have a drag on the ticket if they’re seen as holding too staunch a position.”
To be sure, “too staunch” is a matter of perspective, but if the presumptive GOP nominee tapped Sen. JD Vance for the ticket assuming that his views on reproductive rights would seem mainstream, Trump made a poor choice.
Take this Washington Post report, for example.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), newly tapped as the GOP vice-presidential nominee, last year joined an effort to enforce the Comstock Act, the 151-year-old federal law that has become a lightning rod in the nation’s abortion debate. The Comstock Act, which bans the mailing of abortion-related materials, has not been invoked for that purpose in about a century. … But some Republicans have attempted to resurrect the law to limit or effectively ban abortion nationwide, a position that Vance and other lawmakers conveyed to Attorney General Merrick Garland in a January 2023 letter.
Unfortunately for the Republican ticket, this is just one of many relevant data points.
While Trump has avoided endorsing a national abortion ban, for example, CNN reported that Vance, during his Senate candidacy, said, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”
Vance, the year before reaching Capitol Hill, said at the time, “I’m sympathetic to the view that like, okay, look here, here’s a situation — let’s say Roe vs. Wade is overruled. Ohio bans abortion, in 2022 or let’s say 2024. And then, you know, every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity — uh, that’s kind of creepy.”
“And, and it’s like, if that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening?” Vance said, “I’m pretty sympathetic to that actually. So, you know, how hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion in California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”
The comments are hardly ancient history: The Republican said this just two years ago. What’s more, Vance’s campaign website described him as “100 percent pro-life” — under a headline that read, “END ABORTION” — though the text was quietly removed after Trump chose him for the GOP ticket. In case that weren’t quite enough, Talking Points Memo ran a related report this week, noting that the Biden administration finalized new regulations under HIPAA that limited law enforcement access to medical records tied to reproductive health. Eight Republican senators pushed back against the administration’s efforts — and Vance was one of the eight. And did I mention that Vance publicly endorsed his home state’s six-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest? Because he did that, too. All of which brings us back to the concerns Trump reportedly expressed in the spring. “He’s concerned it will have a drag on the ticket if they’re seen as holding too staunch a position”? By any fair measure, Vance is one of the Senate’s most far-right Republicans when it comes to reproductive rights, with a series of beliefs that most Americans would see as extreme.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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