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Asked whether JD Vance is “ready on day one” if something bad were to happen to him, former President Donald Trump minimized the vice presidential candidate’s role in the campaign.
“Historically, the vice president in terms of the election does not have any impact,” Trump said. “I mean, virtually no impact. You have two or three days where there’s a lot of commotion… and then that dies down and it’s all about the presidential pick.”
He said Vance is “outstanding in every way,” but “you’re voting for the president. You’re voting for me.”
Trump made the remarks at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago during an interview with Semafor’s Kadia Goba, ABC News’ Rachel Scott, and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner.
Vance, who has been unpopular in some early polls, faces scrutiny over a series of resurfaced interviews in which he decried “childless cat ladies” in the Democratic party and suggested the tax code should “punish” people who do not have children. He later said he was voicing support for child tax credits, a tax policy that President Joe Biden sought to expand in office.
Asked if he knew Vance’s views on childless people before selecting him as his running mate, Trump said his interpretation is that Vance is “strongly family-oriented, but that doesn’t mean if you don’t have a family there’s something wrong with that.”
Semafor’s Goba noted to Trump that “[Vance] has a lot of opinions about childless women, like myself, or divorced people, like yourself,” and asked him to respond to critics who worry “the Republican Party is getting a little bit too judgy about people’s lives” on social issues, including abortion.
Trump said the Democratic Party is “really the one that has the problem.”
“I think they’re radical on abortion,” he said. “They’re allowing abortion in the ninth month, they’re allowing the death of a baby after the baby is born.” The three journalists on stage pointed out that the practice he described after birth is illegal in every state.