'I've never liked him': See how JD Vance changed his tune on Trump

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said two-and-a-half years ago he was open to a national abortion ban, a stark contrast to comments he made this week where the Ohio senator said he adhered to Trump’s view that abortion should be a state issue.

Vance argued in 2022 that people seeking abortions would travel from states where abortion is banned to states with liberal abortion laws, necessitating federal action.

“I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally,” Vance said in January 2022 on a podcast when running for Senate.

On Monday, the Ohio senator said he adhered to Trump’s view that abortion was a state issue, though in practice that means abortion can be banned in one state and entirely protected in another.

“My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward,” Vance said to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday. “Alabama’s going to make a different decision from California. That is a reasonable thing. And that’s how I think we build some bridges and have some respect for one another.”

Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion, voters have consistently supported abortion rights in state measures, and the 2022 midterm elections saw numerous anti-abortion Republicans defeated.

Many Republicans, including Vance, have shifted or moderated their abortion positions to align with the current political climate, where anti-abortion rhetoric and policies are seen as increasingly toxic and detrimental to election success. After Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights in 2023, effectively repealing the state’s six-week ban, Vance critiqued the Republican Party’s messaging on abortion. “We have to recognize how much voters mistrust us (meaning elected Republicans) on this issue,” he wrote in a post on X.

Vance’s office pointed CNN to past statements on abortion from Vance as a senator, including one from CNN last December where he said, “We have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans.” He also expressed support for exceptions in the case of the “life of the mother, for rape, and so forth.”

Vance once supported a “national minimum standard” for abortion restrictions and signaled support for a 15-week federal abortion ban to CNN before determining there was no appetite for it in the current climate.

Yet in January 2022, Vance argued that while lawmakers couldn’t ban abortion in the current climate, he was sympathetic to the view that a national ban was necessary.

Vance proposed a hypothetical scenario where if Roe vs. Wade was overturned and Ohio banned abortion by 2024, liberal mega donor and philanthropist George Soros — a popular bogeyman in conservative circles might then facilitate abortions for “disproportionately black women” by flying them to California.

“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 left has this weird desire to conquer everything, right? So I tend to think that these balances are always a little tenuous and eventually, either on any given issue, the left is gonna win or we’re gonna win,” he concluded.

On Monday, delegates at the Republican National Convention approved their party’s new platform with toned-down rhetoric on abortion that aligned with Trump’s state-based approach to the issue. The move has angered some anti-abortion groups who opposed abandoning the party’s old long-standing language, including the de-emphasis on abortion restrictions.

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