Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance said Sunday that former President Donald Trump would veto a national ban on abortion if reelected, a promise that drew immediate pushback from Democrats, including Bay State Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Warren speaking Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press immediately after a segment featuring Vance, said “American women are not stupid and we are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country.”
Vance set out Trump’s view that decisions surrounding abortion are best left up to the states.
“Donald Trump’s view is that we want the individual states and their individual cultures and their unique political sensibilities to make these decisions because we don’t want to have a nonstop federal conflict over this issue,” Vance said.
Trump, according to Vance, would veto a nationwide abortion law that landed on his desk.
“I think he would. He said that explicitly, that he would,” Vance said.
“God have mercy on this nation if this is now the position of what was the Pro-Life Party,” wrote Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in a post Sunday linking to a story on Vance’s comments.
Warren says she doesn’t believe Vance, suggesting that if Trump won reelection he would in fact move to further restrict abortion, even without Congress.
Warren referenced the Comstock Act, an 1873 law which outlaws use of the mail in moving “obscene” material.
“With the right person that they put into the Department of Justice and one of their extremist judges out in the world – they can actually ban all access to abortion all across this country. And understand when I say ‘ban access to abortion,’ I don’t mean with, ‘Oh, exceptions for rape or incest or a 16-week ban.’ I mean ban it for every woman, any time she needs it,” she said.
Vance said that’s simply not the case.
“I think it’s important to step back and say, ‘What has Donald Trump actually said on the abortion question, and how is it different from what Kamala Harris and Democrats have said?’ Donald Trump wants to end this culture war over this particular topic,” he said. “If California wants to have a different abortion policy from Ohio, then Ohio has to respect California, and California has to respect Ohio.”
Trump, for his part, has said that he is proud to have appointed three of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices responsible for the end of Roe v. Wade, and claimed instead that everyone wanted to see the 1973 court decision thrown out.
“Everybody, Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, and Conservatives, wanted Roe v. Wade TERMINATED, and brought back to the States,” he said via his Truth Social media platform, capitalization his.
“This week,” comedian and former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Lovett said Thursday on NBC, “has been about a story.”
In the discourse of American politics, this kind of talk from both sides is unsurprising — fitting, even. Because in the campaign season of 2024, just as in the fabric of American culture at large, the notion of “story” is everywhere.
This year’s political conventions were, like so many of their kind, curated collections of elaborate stories carefully spun to accomplish one goal — getting elected. But lurking behind them was a pitched, high-stakes battle over how to frame the biggest story of all — the one about America that, as Harris put it, should be “the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”
The American story — an unlikely one, filled with twists that sometimes feel, as so many enjoy saying, “just like a movie” — sits at the nucleus of American culture for a unique reason.
Americans live in one of the only societies that was built not upon hundreds of years of common culture but upon stories themselves — “the shining city upon the hill,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” “all men are created equal.” Even memorable ad campaigns — “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” — are part of this. In some ways, the United States — not coincidentally, the place where the frontier myth, Hollywood and Madison Avenue were all born — willed itself into existence and significance by iterating and reiterating its story as it went.
The campaigns understand that. So they are putting forward to voters two varying — starkly opposite, some might say — versions of the American story.
How the two parties are using stories
From the Republicans comes one flavor of story: an insistence that to “make America great again” in the future we must fight to reinvigorate traditional values and reclaim the moral fiber and stoutheartedness of generations past. In his convention speech last month, Trump invoked three separate conflicts — the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II — in summoning American history’s glories.
To reinforce its vision, the GOP deployed the likes of musician Kid Rock, celebrity wrestler Hulk Hogan and Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA.” Trump genuflected to the firefighting gear of Corey Comperatore, who had been killed in an assassination attempt on the candidate days earlier. Vance spoke of “villains” and offered up the Appalachian coming-of-age story he told in “Hillbilly Elegy.”
FILE – Hulk Hogan tears off his shirt while speaking on the final night of the Republican National Convention on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE – Kid Rock performs during the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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FILE – Hulk Hogan tears off his shirt while speaking on the final night of the Republican National Convention on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The Republicans, as they often do, leaned into military storylines, bringing forth families of slain servicemen to critique President Joe Biden’s “weak” leadership. And they made all efforts to manage their constituencies. Vance’s wife, Usha, who is of Indian descent, lauded him as “a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy” — a classic American trope — while underscoring that he respected her vegetarian diet and had learned how to cook Indian food for her mother.
“What could I say that hasn’t already been said before?” she said, introducing Vance. “After all, the man was already the subject of a Ron Howard movie.”
And the Democrats? Their convention last week focused on a new and different future full of “joy” and free of what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called “Trump’s politics of darkness.” It was an implied “Star Wars” metaphor if there ever was one.
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It was hard to miss that the Democrats were not only coalescing around the multiracial, multicultural nation that Harris personifies but at the same time methodically trying to reclaim the plainspoken slivers of the American story that have rested in Republican hands in recent years.
The flag was everywhere, as was the notion of freedom. Tim Walz entered to the tune of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” an ode to the vision of America that Republicans usually trumpet. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota expounded upon the regular-guy traits that Walz embodies — someone who can change a car light, a hunter, a “dad in plaid.”
The former geography teacher’s football-coach history was mined as well, with beefy guys in Mankato West Scarlets jerseys fanning out across the stage to the marching-band strains of “The Halls of Montezuma.” They even enlisted a former GOP member of Congress to reinforce all the imagery by saying the quiet part loud.
“I want to let my fellow Republicans in on the secret: The Democrats are as patriotic as us,” said Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican critical of Trump.
Bringing it all together
Watching the videos and testimonials at both conventions, one storytelling technique stood tall: what journalists call “character-driven” tales. Whether it’s advocating for abortion rights or warning about mass illegal immigration or channeling anger about inflation, “regular” Americans became the narrative building blocks for national concerns.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson put it this way about the DNC in her Substack, “Letters from an American,” this past week: “The many stories in which ordinary Americans rise from adversity through hard work, decency, and service to others implicitly conflates those individual struggles with the struggles of the United States itself.”
In the past generation, the tools of storytelling have become more democratic. We are all publishers now — on X, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Truth Social. And we are all storytellers, telling mini versions of the American story in whatever ways we wish. Perspectives that have been long silenced and suppressed are making their way into the light.
Putting aside questions of truth and misinformation for a moment, how can a unifying American story be summoned when hundreds of millions of people are now able to tell it differently and from their own vantage points? Democratization is beneficial, but it can also be chaotic and hard to understand.
Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate, recites a poem during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Benjamin C. Ingman, center, former student of Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is joined on stage by former members of the Mankato West High School football team during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate, recites a poem during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“A people who cannot stand together cannot stand at all,” poet Amanda Gorman said in her remarks at the DNC. But with so many stories to sort through, is unity more difficult than ever? Is there even a single, unifying “American story” at all? Should there be?
In the end, that’s why this election is about storytelling more than ever. Because the loudest, most persuasive tale — told slickly with the industrial-strength communications tools of the 21st century — will likely win the day.
In the meantime, the attempts to commandeer and amplify versions of that story will continue to Election Day and beyond. As long as there is an American nation, there will be millions of people trying to tell us what it means — desperately, angrily, optimistically, compellingly. Stories are a powerful weapon, and a potent metaphor as well. As Walz said about leaving Trump and Vance behind: “I’m ready to turn the page.”
Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture and politics for 35 years. Follow him at https://x.com/anthonyted
DETROIT (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday is tying Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic Afghanistan War withdrawal on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, laid wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of three of the slain service members — Sgt. Nicole Gee, Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover and Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. Later in the day, he was going to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference.
Monday marks three years since the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed the American service members and more than 100 Afghans. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Biden administration was following a withdrawal commitment and timeline that the Trump administration had negotiated with the Taliban in 2020. A 2022 review by a government-appointed special investigator concluded decisions made by both Trump and President Joe Biden were the key factors leading to the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s military and the Taliban takeover.
On his Truth Social site Monday, Trump called the withdrawal “the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country. Gross Incompetence – 13 DEAD American soldiers, hundreds of people wounded and dead.”
“You don’t take our soldiers out first, you take them out LAST, when all else is successfully done,” he said in the post.
Afghans attend a ceremony to celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan, in Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Taliban fighters carry rocket launchers as they celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan, in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, southwestern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaliq)
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Afghans attend a ceremony to celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan, in Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Since Biden ended his reelection bid, Trump has been zeroing in on Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and her roles in foreign policy decisions. He has specifically highlighted the vice president’s statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision on Afghanistan.
“She bragged that she would be the last person in the room, and she was. She was the last person in the room with Biden when the two of them decided to pull the troops out of Afghanistan,” he said last week in a North Carolina rally. “She had the final vote. She had the final say, and she was all for it.”
In her own statement marking the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack, Harris said she mourns the 13 U.S. service members who were killed. “My prayers are with their families and loved ones. My heart breaks for their pain and their loss,” she said.
Harris said she honors and remembers all Americans who served in Afghanistan.
“As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war. Over the past three years, our Administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones,” she said. “I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people.”
The relatives of some of the American service members who were killed appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention last month, saying Biden had never publicly named their loved ones.
“Joe Biden has refused to recognize their sacrifice,” Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Gee, told the crowd. “Donald Trump knew all of our children’s names. He knew all of their stories.”
In a statement Monday on the Kabul attack anniversary, Biden said the 13 Americans who died were “patriots in the highest sense” who “embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless.”
“Ever since I became Vice President, I carried a card with me every day that listed the exact number of American service members who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan—including Taylor, Johanny, Nicole, Hunter, Daegan, Humberto, David, Jared, Rylee, Dylan, Kareem, Maxton, and Ryan,” Biden said.
Also Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced that Congress will posthumously honor the 13 service members by presenting their families with the Congressional Gold Medal next month. It’s the highest civilian award that Congress can bestow.
Under Trump, the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that was aimed at ending America’s longest war and bringing U.S. troops home. Biden later pointed to that agreement as he sought to deflect blame for the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan, saying it bound him to withdraw troops and set the stage for the chaos that engulfed the country.
A Biden administration review of the withdrawal acknowledged that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but attributed the delays to the Afghan government and military, and to U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.
The top two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation said the administration inadequately planned for the withdrawal. The nation’s top-ranking military officer at the time, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, told lawmakers earlier this year he had urged Biden to keep a residual force of 2,500 forces to give backup. Instead, Biden decided to keep a much smaller force of 650 that would be limited to securing the U.S. embassy.
The campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are arguing in advance of their high-stakes Sept. 10 debate over whether microphones should be muted except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak.
While it’s common for campaigns to quibble beforehand over debate mechanics, both Harris and Trump are under pressure to deliver a strong performance next month in Philadelphia. The first debate during this campaign led to President Joe Biden’s departure from the race.
Trump on Sunday night raised the possibility that he might not show up on ABC, posting on his Truth Social network that he had watched the network’s Sunday show with a “so-called Panel of Trump Haters” and posited, “why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” and urging followers to “Stay tuned!!”
The current dispute centers on the muting of microphones when a candidate isn’t speaking, a condition both Biden and Trump accepted for their June debate hosted by CNN. Both sides are accusing the other of gaming the system to protect their candidate.
Biden’s campaign team made microphone muting a condition of its decision to accept any debates this year, and some aides now regret the decision, saying voters were shielded from hearing Trump’s outbursts during the debate. That move likely would not have helped the incumbent Democrat’s disastrous performance.
The Harris campaign now wants microphones to be live all the time, according to Harris spokesman Brian Fallon, who issued a statement needling Trump.
“Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said. Harris “is ready to deal with Trump’s constant lies and interruptions in real time. Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”
Trump spokesman Jason Miller retorted that the Republican nominee had “accepted the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate.” He alleged Harris’ representatives sought “a seated debate, with notes, and opening statements.”
Miller then took a shot at Harris not sitting for an interview or holding a news conference since Biden ended his reelection and endorsed her, arguing her campaign now wants “to give her a cheat sheet for the debate.”
The Harris campaign denied Miller’s claim that she wanted notes or to be seated during the debate.
“I’d rather have it probably on,” Trump said Monday during a stop in the Washington area, when asked if he wanted microphones muted. “I didn’t like it the last time, but it worked out fine,” he added, in terms of the policy during his debate with Biden.
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“We agreed to the same rules — same rules, same specifications,” Trump noted, for his Sept. 10 debate with Harris. “And I think that’s probably what it should be.”
Asked how he was preparing for the debate, Trump responded, “I’m not. … I think my whole life I’ve been preparing for a debate.”
Complicating the negotiations this year is that debates are being orchestrated on an ad hoc basis by host networks, as opposed to the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, through which debate rules were negotiated privately.
Microphones have been unmuted for both candidates for most of televised presidential debate history. The debate commission announced that its October 2020 debate would have microphones muted when candidates were not recognized to speak after the first Biden-Trump contest descended into a shouting match. The second 2020 debate with the microphone muting rules was widely celebrated for being more substantive than the earlier matchup.
Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Colleen Long in Washington, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
