J.D. Vance’s willingness to regularly answer questions from mainstream news sources has added an unofficial duty to his role as Donald Trump’s running mate: chief explainer.
In interviews, at news conferences and while talking to reporters on his campaign plane, Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, often has to defend, decode or “well, actually” Trump’s latest provocative comment.
That time Trump wondered if Vice President Kamala Harris is really black? “I think he highlighted the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris,” Vance argued.
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 mentioned a Democratic congressman by name as he warned of a “domestic enemy” and stoked fears of chaos that justified military intervention on Election Day? “The enemy within,” Vance suggested, “is people that Kamala Harris allowed into this country unchecked, unchecked and undocumented.”
All Republicans – from Trump’s top surrogates to the candidates rejected in local elections – will inevitably be forced to answer for Trump’s most inflammatory rhetoric. Many Republican members of Congress have made a ritual of dodging questions about his latest outbursts in recent years, claiming ignorance of what he said.
But Vance is the campaign’s most prominent player after Trump. His willingness towards Trump–splain follows a well-documented conversion from Trump critic to loyalist. Eight years ago, he was a memoirist who frequently found himself analyzing — and lamenting — Trump’s appeal to voters in distressed manufacturing towns like the one in which he grew up.
These days it often falls to Vance to explain what Trump is Actually means, as he sees it — or to make a more precise point of something shocking or confusing Trump has said, while above all never straying from the Trump ethos of never apologizing.
“I think in 2016 I saw the divisions in American politics as at least partly the fault of Donald Trump, and in 2018, 2019, I saw those divisions as the fault of an American political and media culture that couldn’t even pay attention to its own citizens,” Vance recently said in a podcast on “The Interview,” a New York Times podcast. “And I think that Donald Trump, you know, not only – I’ll put it this way, I don’t know that anyone else in 2016 could possibly have done what Trump did. And I think his rhetoric was actually a necessary part of that.
Vance takes his role in defending Trump seriously and strongly believes the focus remains on him and his ideas, an adviser to Vance told NBC News. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
It can be difficult to explain for Trump without overstepping him, especially when it comes to delicate policy issues. During his debate with Harris last month, Trump made it clear 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 issue. Vance later acknowledged that he had “learned my lesson” about not getting ahead of the boss.
Trump and his advisers were 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 large number of voters continue to view Vance negatively, their opinion of him improved somewhat after his debate with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. A recent national NBC News poll found that 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, especially his false claims that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. The 2020 dispute created an irreparable rift between Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to block the certification of their losses to Joe Biden and Harris.
During his debate this month with Walz, Vance declined to say whether Trump lost four years ago. Reporters in the days and weeks that followed hounded him to provide a fuller answer. After a meeting last week in Pennsylvania, Vance alleged that technology and media companies were censoring information that Biden would have damaged.
“So, did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words I would use,” Vance said.
As on the recent New York Times podcast, Vance has also attempted to explain and excuse Trump’s divisive tone, even as he acknowledges that he once blamed Trump for the nasty discourse in American politics. His strongest defense of Trump’s language came after the second attempt to assassinate Trump.
“I really don’t think it’s up to President Trump to tone down the rhetoric now that he’s on his second assassination attempt in his country. [as] many months,” Vance told reporters under the wing of his campaign plane after a campaign visit to western Michigan, two days after the man accused of trying to kill 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 clear 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 to have peace” with the Palestinians, Vance attempted a diplomatic evasion.
“I think what the president has said is that we want peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but the only way to achieve peace is to destroy Hamas and let Israel finish its job,” he said, referring to the war in the Middle East. East. “That’s very simple.”
Vance was also pressed last week during a news conference in Minneapolis about Trump’s praise for Walz’s handling of the 2020 protests following the killing of George Floyd.
“Well, look, I think President Trump said something nice and polite about Governor Walz on a conference call,” Vance responded, before alluding to buildings, including a police station, that were set on fire during the unrest. “Donald Trump was forced to be polite to Governor Walz. … It doesn’t mean he should have let rioters and looters burn down the city of Minneapolis.”
In the instances where Trump trashed Detroit and suggested that military force might be necessary on Election Day against the “enemy within,” Vance offered more nuanced and less heated rhetoric while also not indicating substantive disagreements with Trump.
‘Is it a justified use of these resources if they cause riots, loot and burn down cities? Of course it is,” Vance said in Minneapolis when asked by NBC News about the “enemy within” comments. “If you have a major response to the 2024 election, you obviously need to dedicate law enforcement resources to bring order back to our cities.”
Occasionally, Vance expands on Trump’s inflammatory words and explains why he thinks 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 preemptively told reporters that he was aware of the “comments being heard around the world.” (Trump said: “I didn’t know she was black until several years ago, when she happened to become 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 comparing Harris to a color-changing lizard. “I think he highlighted the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris.”
But sometimes Vance seems to understand that the less he says, the better.
On Monday, a day after Trump tricked Harris into making fries at a McDonald’s, Vance demurred when asked whether the stunt reflected an official campaign position that Harris is lying about the summer job she said she once had at the fast-food restaurant. .
“I don’t know if there’s a campaign position behind 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 everything that I 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 took a light-hearted stance.
“Look, I love Melania,” Vance said of the former first lady. “She has been a great example of grace under an incredible amount of pressure, but Melania is entitled to her own opinion.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
