Column: JD Vance won the VP debate with lies. Here’s the truth, in his own words

Less than five weeks remain until the election, and today we are talking about being wrong and doing wrong.

On Tuesday night, at least two of you probably watched the vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance. Seriously, it was so boring I was missing the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head in 2020.

I had predicted that Vance would continue his rage-fueled rants about immigration in particular — but I was wrong. Instead, Vance was calm, polished and reasonable. He even complimented Walz a couple of times.

He said he and Donald Trump wouldn’t back a national ban on abortions. He backed away from deporting millions of undocumented people. He shifted positions like a chameleon changing colors to fit into its nationally televised surroundings.

In short, he lied, lied and lied some more, with ease and flair. Sometimes he just flat-out fabricated, and other times he balanced deftly on the knife edge between fact and fiction. Where his boss, Trump, screams his deceits in between stories of batteries and sinking boats, Vance delivered them covered in sugar and serenity.

I don’t think anyone outside of MAGA diehards would argue that Vance crushingly won this debate, but his slick delivery definitely gave him an edge — and gave the rest of us insight into a guy who seems totally unburdened by his past statements.

But I’m old fashioned, so I still think lying, even in politics, is doing wrong by voters.

So let’s unpack a few of Vance’s dodges and misdirects, using his own words, past and present.

JD Vance and Tim Walz talk after the debate.

(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

The abortion dodge

Vance at the debate: “I never supported a national ban. I did during, when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard.”

Abortion is to Trump what the decapitated whale’s head is to Robert F. Kennedy Jr: A messy stink bomb of an issue. Trump has been looking to distance himself from it ever since polls showed voters care about access to reproductive care. One of the most insidious ways both Trump and Vance are doing this is by playing with the word “ban.”

Yes, it is true that neither man would likely support a national law that outlawed every single abortion, at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason. And that is how they are interpreting ban.

But Vance has repeatedly said that not only would he like to see abortion outlawed, he has no problem limiting access nationally.

In 2022, Vance said on the “Very Fine People” podcast that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”

In his 2022 debate with Tim Ryan for Senate, Vance said: “I think it’s totally reasonable to say you cannot abort a baby, especially for elective reasons, after 15 weeks of gestation. ... No civilized country allows it. I don’t want the United States to be an exception.”

At a Georgia Faith and Freedom event on Sept. 17, Vance said: “Now, thanks to President Trump, we have turned the page [on abortion], and our nation has a chance for a fresh start. And today, we all say together, unafraid, we are proud to be the pro-life party in the United States of America.”

And it’s not just about abortion. Really, it’s about stuffing everyone back into outdated and dangerous boxes of identity.

In a 2021 interview with folks from conservative outlet the Federalist, Vance said he’d like to punish universities that teach about the history of racism or feminism — citing Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban as a model.

“You know, I think a couple of things that we can do is we could tie any federal money to not teaching the critical race theory stuff and not teaching the gender theory stuff,” Vance said. “Orban in Hungary effectively made it such that you cannot teach radical gender theory in Hungarian universities. If you do, you don’t get any money. We can do that in the United States, easy.”

Immigration backtracking

Vance at the debate: “The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’ open border. It is a disgrace.”

Also Vance at the debate: “I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants. About a million of those people have committed some form of crime in addition to crossing the border illegally. I think you start with deportations on those folks.”

As most of you know, Trump and Vance have made demonizing immigrants a cornerstone of their campaign, rarely making distinctions between those folks who are here legally and those who crossed the border illegally. Trump has repeatedly said — as has Vance — that they would deport every person in the U.S. who is undocumented, a move that would not only destroy thousands of families with mixed status but also crush the economy.

Vance backed away from all of that during the debate, saying little more than violent criminals would be deported, a position that few will argue against.

But Wednesday in Michigan, he went back to his original plan — threatening mass deportations again.

“In six months, pack your bags because you’re going home,” he warned.

Christian nationalist core

At his core, if Vance has one, there is a Christian nationalism that seems to embrace Trump as a means to an end. This is what really concerns me about Vance, not that he believes in nothing, but that he believes in a country run on Christianity above law.

At the September Faith and Freedom event in Georgia, Vance said this:

“We must love our God and let it motivate us in how we enact public policy and how we live our faith and how we govern our nation.”

Combine that with this gem from the 2021 Heritage Foundation interview: “We have to be willing to ruthlessly use power.”

Which brings me to the final minutes of the debate, when Walz scored his toughest point, asking Vance if he conceded that Trump lost the 2020 election.

Vance dodged, saying only that he’s “focused on the future.”

“That’s a damning non-answer,” Walz replied.

But it was only one of many.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: How Two Billionaire Preachers Remade Texas Politics
The are you serious?: Republicans are livid after the debate moderators fact-checked JD Vance
The L.A. Times Special: VP debate: Walz whiffs on immigration, Vance dodges question and misinforms

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. A Republican congressman posted this weirdly edited photo of JD Vance today, and now it’s all over. If I have to see it, you do, too.

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