abortion, immigration, Ukraine and election integrity : NPR

Then-candidate JD Vance speaks to supporters at the Aurora Inn Event Center on October 13, 2022 in Aurora, Ohio.

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In his first two years in the Senate, J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, has established himself as a populist voice, at times clashing with Republican leadership.

But on issues like abortion, immigration and election integrity, he’s closely aligned with Trump.

Here’s a look at where Vance stands on key issues:

Vance on abortion

Vance describes himself as “pro-life,” but during his 2022 Senate campaign said he would like the issue to be left to the states.

“I’d like it to be primarily a state issue,” Vance said in an interview with the Cincinnati Inquirer. “Ohio is going to want to have a different abortion policy from California, from New York, and I think that’s reasonable.”

In a 2022 debate with Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan, Vance said he would support “a number of different exceptions” but did not specify what exactly those exceptions would be.

Earlier this month, Vance said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he supports the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone.

The anti-abortion group Students for Life Action gave Vance an A- on their “Pro-Life Generation Report Card.”

Vance on aid to Ukraine

Vance is one of the leading congressional Republican voices against U.S. aid to Ukraine. In an April op-ed, Vance wrote that he “remains opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war.”

In the same op-ed, he encouraged Biden to pursue a negotiated peace with Putin.

In September 2023, Vance was among a group of Republican senators who opposed President Biden’s request for additional Ukraine aid.

“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to,” the senators wrote. “How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan? What does the administration define as victory in Ukraine?”

John Conway, a leader of the group Republicans for Ukraine, called Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate “a huge disappointment to all Republicans who want to see Ukraine win, Russia lose, and Putin defeated.”

“Sen. Vance has a long history of confusing free, America-loving countries like Ukraine with tyrannical, corrupt, anti-American dictatorships like Russia,” Conway said in a statement to NPR. “The establishment of the Republican Party cannot continue to ignore the millions of Republicans who value American national security and understand that Ukraine is America’s friend and Putin is America’s enemy.”

Vance on election integrity

In Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump has found a fellow election denier as his running mate — one who’s already sown seeds of doubt about the upcoming presidential election.

While running for the Senate in 2022, Vance said on the campaign trail that he thought the 2020 election was “stolen from Trump.” And earlier this year, Vance told ABC News he still questions the results of the 2020 election.

“Do I think there were problems in 2020? Yes, I do,” he told George Stephanopoulos in February.

Speaking on CNN in May, Vance downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying he was “truly skeptical” that former Vice President Mike Pence’s life “was ever in danger,” despite chants from the crowd that Pence should be hanged.

“I think politics and politics people like to really exaggerate things from time to time,” Vance said.

Vance on immigration

Vance has taken a hard line on immigration; he has often decried a “crisis” at the southern border and called for funding and constructing a border wall.

Speaking on Fox News in June, Vance said he believes the U.S. should conduct “large-scale deportations.”

Like Trump, Vance wants to “drain the swamp”

In a 2021 podcast, Vance advised Trump to, “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” and then potentially defy the Supreme Court if the president was sued.

Vance’s words sound like a “winning message,” Caroline Sunshine, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, told NPR’s Morning Edition.