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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump is used to defending himself. But this week, the Republican presidential nominee has been put in the rare position of having to defend someone else — his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
When Vance was first introduced at the Republican National Convention last month, many GOP officials said they didn’t know much about him. Since then, the void has been filled with multiple reports of controversial statements — especially Vance's previous suggestion that Vice President Kamala Harris and other so-called “childless cat ladies” want to make the country miserable — that have made his rollout among the most turbulent in recent history.
“I’m just speaking for myself. And I think I’m speaking for him, too,” Trump said during a contentious interview Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. “My interpretation is he’s strongly family-oriented. But that doesn’t mean that if you don’t have a family, there’s something wrong with that.”
Conservative commentators, Republican strategists and GOP elected officials on Capitol Hill publicly and privately agree that Vance’s introduction to America has not gone well, with Democrats highlighting his past statements on abortion rights and a suggestion that parents should have more of a vote than adults without children. Harris and her allies have started calling both Vance and Trump “weird,” messaging that has taken off online.
Seventeen days later, Trump and his allies have yet to quiet criticism from within their own party.
“I think if he was thinking two years ago or three years ago, ‘I might be on a presidential ticket in a couple of years,’ he might have chosen different words,” North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, a longtime Trump ally, said Wednesday. Cramer also suggested that Vance could apologize for his comments about childless Americans, saying, “If he feels the need to apologize, people are very forgiving.”
Vance has not apologized. And a senior Trump adviser said Tuesday there has been “zero conversation” about replacing Vance as his running mate.
Soon, the adviser predicted, voters would shift their attention away from Vance and toward Harris’ choice for vice president on the Democratic ticket, which is expected in the coming days. The adviser spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal campaign strategy.
Vance, a 39-year-old Republican senator, has held office for less than 18 months but quickly established himself as a thought leader in the “Make America Great Again” movement.
The first-term Ohio senator was not the most popular choice of many Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially compared to more experienced candidates such as Sens. Tim Scott and Marco Rubio. Some believe that the pick came during a moment of overconfidence as Trump’s team was predicting a blowout victory against a diminished President Joe Biden.
But the presidential contest changed profoundly once Biden stepped aside and endorsed Harris. And now, Trump’s allies acknowledge that his victory in November is no sure thing.
Twice in the last century, vice presidential nominees were replaced after being announced. But it hasn’t happened since George McGovern dropped Missouri Sen. Tom Eagleton in 1972 after it was revealed Eagleton had received electroshock therapy for a mental health issue.
More recently, Arizona Sen. John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin helped sink his 2008 campaign.
There is a sense that things would need to get much worse before Vance would become a serious political liability for Trump, who could theoretically replace him — a possibility that Democrats have been eager to promote in recent days.
“This is a short-term bump in the road,” Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said.
Trump himself addressed the fallout on Wednesday in Chicago during an interview in which he questioned Harris’ racial identity and falsely asserted she had downplayed being Black.
“This is well-documented, historically, the vice president in terms of the election does not have any impact, virtually no impact,” Trump said when asked about Vance. “You can have a vice president that is outstanding in every way, and I think JD is, I think all of them would have been, but you’re not voting that way. You’re voting for the president. You’re voting for me.”
Attendees at Trump’s Wednesday rally in swing-state Pennsylvania dismissed the idea that Trump should dump Vance, even though they disagreed with his previous suggestion that parents should have more voting power than childless adults.
“Trump should stick with the people he’s picked,” said Jeff Miller, 53, who has five kids, all grown.
Kenneth “Nemo” Niemann said Vance has an “appealing” personal story that makes him a good addition to the ticket and noted that no one agrees with someone else all the time anyway. “I don’t agree 100% with what Trump says,” Niemann said.
And at Vance's Wednesday night rally in Arizona, another closely contested state, Rachael Jensen, a 42-year-old mother of six, said she appreciates that what she called the “Washington establishment” doesn’t appear to like him.
Jensen said she didn’t think that parents should have more voting power than people without children.
“I believe it should be one citizen, one vote, regardless if you have 12 children or no children,” Jensen said.
Meanwhile, Republican senators on Capitol Hill were peppered with a new round of questions about Vance.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said of Vance that “he’s going to take a few hits early on and he’s going to get his traction.”
“One of you guys once told me that as soon as somebody is announced for office, they’ll have some combination of a colonoscopy and a CT scan. And I think he’s seeing that right now,” Cassidy told reporters.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., was asked about Vance as he was getting into one of the Capitol’s elevators.
“I mean, it’s a campaign. People are going to twist what you say,” said the Louisiana Republican.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who was standing in the elevator with Kennedy, shot back, “They’re not twisting it. They’re quoting him.”
“Politics is a full-contact sport,” Kennedy responded. The elevator door then closed.
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Peoples reported from New York. Groves reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Kevin Freking in Washington and Gabriel Sandoval in Glendale, Arizona, contributed to this report.