Sen. JD Vance made the rounds on major news networks on Sunday, appearing on ABC, CBS and CNN, while his Democratic counterpart, Gov. Tim Walz, was nowhere to be found.
Vance gave an extended interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, with their conversation airing in full on Sunday. Vance detailed plans for deportations and defended his support for family voting.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has attacked Vance for past comments, suggesting that parents should get extra votes when they have children.
“The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds, but let’s do this instead,” Vance said in a speech at a private event. “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power.”
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Vance described the comments on Sunday as a “thought experiment” and not a policy proposal.
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“Do I regret saying it? I regret that the media and the Kamala Harris campaign has, frankly, distorted what I said,” he said. “They turn this into a policy proposal that I never made. … I said, I want us to be more pro-family.”
Vance went on to elaborate on former President Donald Trump’s plans to handle illegal immigration, specifically regarding calls for mass deportations. The Ohio senator said that a second Trump administration would take a “sequential approach” to removing the nearly 20 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.
“You start with what’s achievable,” Vance said. “I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and, frankly, if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem.”
“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with 1 million. That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there,” he added.
Vance also spoke with CBS’ “Face the Nation” in an interview that aired Sunday. Host Margaret Brennan pressed Vance on comments Trump made claiming that the majority of voters don’t truly care about vice presidential picks.
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“I think President Trump’s right about that, actually. I think most people are voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris,” Vance said. “I think that he’s actually right, that most people, when they cast their ballots, they’re basing it based on who the presidential nominee is, not the vice presidential nominee. It’s just straightforward political reality. I think Donald Trump’s right.”
Vance also answered many of the same questions in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Jake Tapper.
Meanwhile, Walz was nowhere to be found on any of the major networks on Sunday. His absence is part of a running theme with the Harris campaign, which has struggled with media transparency.
Harris herself has gone weeks without conducting a formal interview or holding a press conference, despite being made the Democratic nominee for president. Harris has committed to conducting an interview “before the end of the month.”
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