JD Vance’s willingness to regularly take questions from mainstream news outlets has added an unofficial duty to his role as Donald Trump’s running mate: explainer-in-chief.
In interviews, at news conferences and while speaking with reporters on his campaign plane, Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, often finds himself having to defend, decode or “well, actually” whatever provocative Trump comment made most recently.
That time Trump questioned whether Vice President Kamala Harris is really Black? “I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance contended.
When Trump disparaged Detroit, a majority-Black city in battleground Michigan? Trump, Vance said, “was just talking honestly about the fact that Detroit has been left behind.”
And when Trump name-dropped a Democratic congressman when he warned about an “enemy within” and stoked fears of chaos justifying military intervention on Election Day? “The enemy within,” Vance offered, “are people that Kamala Harris let into this country unvetted, unchecked and undocumented.”
All Republicans — from top Trump surrogates to down-ballot candidates in local races — are inevitably forced to answer for Trump’s most inflammatory rhetoric. Many GOP members of Congress have made a ritual in recent years out of sidestepping questions about his latest outbursts, claiming not to be aware of what he said.
But Vance is, after Trump, the campaign’s most prominent player. His willingness to Trump–splain follows a well-documented conversion from Trump critic to loyalist. Eight years ago, he was a bestselling memoirist frequently called on to analyze — and lament — Trump’s appeal to voters in distressed manufacturing towns like the one he grew up in.
Today, it often falls to Vance to explain what Trump actually means, as he sees it — or to put a finer point on something shocking or puzzling that Trump has said while, above all else, never deviating from the Trump ethos of never apologizing.
“I think that in 2016, I saw the divisiveness in American politics as at least partly Donald Trump’s fault, and by 2018, 2019, I saw that divisiveness as the fault of an American political and media culture that couldn’t even pay attention to its own citizens,” Vance said in a recent appearance on “The Interview,” a New York Times podcast. “And I think Donald Trump is, you know, not just — I put it this way, I don’t know that anybody else in 2016 possibly could have done what Trump did. And I think his rhetoric actually was a necessary part of it.”
Vance takes his role defending Trump seriously and believes strongly in keeping the focus on him and his ideas, an adviser to Vance told NBC News. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Explaining for Trump without overstepping him can be fraught, especially on delicate policy issues. At his debate with Harris last month, Trump clarified that, although Vance had said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump would veto a national abortion ban, the two had never discussed the matter. Vance later acknowledged he had “learned my lesson” about not getting ahead of the boss.
Trump and his advisers have been pleased with Vance’s performance after a messy rollout in which some of his own hot rhetoric about “childless cat ladies” running the Democratic Party distracted from the campaign’s message.
And while a plurality of voters continue to view Vance negatively, their opinions of him improved slightly after his debate with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. A recent national NBC News poll found 37% of respondents had positive feelings about Vance — up from 32% in September, though the result was within the margin of error.
Vance is careful not to stray from Trump’s core grievances and positions, most notably his false claims that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. The dispute over 2020 caused an irreparable rift between Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to block certification of their loss to Joe Biden and Harris.
At his debate this month with Walz, Vance declined to say whether Trump lost four years ago. Reporters in the days and weeks afterward hounded him to offer a more complete answer. After a rally last week in Pennsylvania, Vance contended that tech and media companies censored information that would have damaged Biden.
“So, did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use,” Vance said.
As he did on the recent New York Times podcast, Vance also has tried to explain and excuse Trump’s divisive tone, even while he acknowledges that he once blamed Trump for the nasty discourse in American politics. His most forceful defense of Trump’s language came after the second attempt to assassinate Trump.
“I really don’t think that President Trump, the onus is on him to tone down the rhetoric now that he’s on his second assassination attempt in [as] many months,” Vance told reporters under the wing of his campaign plane following a campaign visit to western Michigan two days after the man accused of seeking to assassinate Trump in Florida, Ryan Routh, was arrested.
“I think the onus is on the left to really see and do what it can do,” Vance added.
Vance has also tried to clean up old Trump comments.
Asked last month in Newtown, Pennsylvania, about a 2021 interview in which Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “never wanted peace” with the Palestinians, Vance attempted a diplomatic dodge.
“I think that what the president has said is that we want peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but the only way to get to peace is to destroy Hamas and let Israel finish the job,” he said, referring to the war in the Middle East. “That’s a very simple thing.”
Vance also was pressed last week at a news conference in Minneapolis about Trump’s praise for Walz’s handling of the protests in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.
“Well, look, I think President Trump, during a conference call, said something nice and polite about Gov. Walz,” Vance responded, before he alluded to buildings, including a police station, that were set ablaze during the unrest. “Donald Trump was forced to be polite to Gov. Walz. … It doesn’t mean that he should have let rioters and looters burn down in the city of Minneapolis.”
In the instances when Trump trashed Detroit and suggested military force might be necessary on Election Day against the “enemy within,” Vance offered more nuanced and less heated rhetoric while also not indicating any substantive disagreements with Trump.
“Is it a justifiable use of those assets if they’re rioting and looting and burning cities down to the ground? Of course it is,” Vance said in Minneapolis when he was asked by NBC News about the “enemy within” comments. “If you have a major reaction to an election in 2024, of course, you ought to commit law enforcement resources to bring the order back to our cities.”
On occasion, Vance doubles down on Trump’s inflammatory words, explaining why he believes they make sense — no matter how provocative they are. Aboard his campaign plane in July, after Trump questioned Harris’ race in an interview with Black journalists, Vance pre-emptively told reporters that he was aware of the “comments heard around the world.” (Trump said: “I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. … Is she Indian or is she Black?”)
“I thought it was hysterical,” Vance said, before he compared Harris to a color-changing lizard. “I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris.”
Sometimes, though, Vance seems to understand that the less he says, the better.
On Monday, a day after Trump trolled Harris by making french fries at a McDonald’s, Vance demurred when he was asked whether the stunt reflected an official campaign position that Harris is lying about the summer job she said she once held at the fast-food restaurant.
“I don’t know if there’s a campaign position on it,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News host Bill Hemmer. “I don’t know what’s ultimately true here, but it’s interesting where the media will try to nitpick and micromanage every single thing that me or Donald Trump has said.”
And after Melania Trump’s new memoir revealed her supportive views on abortion rights — a position at odds with his own — Vance trod lightly.
“Look, I love Melania,” Vance said of the former first lady. “She’s been a great example of grace under an incredible amount of pressure, but Melania is entitled to her own views.”
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