Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, on Saturday said Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if a bill were to be passed by Congress.
Asked on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” about GOP lawmakers like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham who would want to see Trump advocate for and pass an abortion ban, Vance told moderator Kristen Welker that Trump has “explicitly” said he would veto a ban.
“I mean, if you’re not supporting it, as the president of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it,” Vance argued.
The latest position from the Trump campaign comes as the former president has changed his position on abortion policy over the years.
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In April, Trump was asked on a tarmac in Atlanta about whether he would sign a national abortion ban if it passed through Congress and he simply answered “no.”
But the former president didn’t clarify at the time what he considered a “ban.”
In 2018, when he was president, Trump called on the Senate to pass a 20-week limit on abortions that had already passed the House.
Last year, he celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the constitutional right to abortion.
“After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump said in a May 2023 social media post.
And as recently as March, Trump flirted with the notion of a 15-week federal abortion ban, telling a local radio host that “the number of weeks now — people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that, and it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable.”
“But people are really — even hard-liners are agreeing — seems to be 15 weeks, seems to be a number that people are agreeing at,” Trump added in that interview.
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