In Resurfaced Audio, JD Vance Calls for Banning Travel Between States to Get Abortions

In an alarming soundbite that’s resurfaced online, Ohio senator and vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggested that the federal government should intervene to punish people who travel across state lines to get abortions.

The 48-second clip involves the bestselling author fantasizing about a “federal response” to people traveling from Ohio to California for reproductive healthcare.

As CNN previously reported, the clip was recorded back in January 2022, before Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court later that summer and before Vance was elected to the Senate.

In its full context, however — and with Vance now running for the vice presidency — the quote is even more alarming.

Recorded during an interview with the “Very Fine People” podcast, which seemingly is a reference to then-President Trump’s comments about there being “very fine people on both sides” of the deadly Charlottesville white nationalist rally in 2017, Vance offers up a conservative fever dream that also involves one of the right’s favorite boogeymen.

“Here’s a situation — let’s say Roe v. Wade is overruled,” the millennial author, then on the campaign trail, quipped. “Ohio bans abortion in 2022, or let’s say 2024. And then, you know, every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity.”

And it only gets worse from there.

After the podcast hosts are heard making glib reference to liberal talking points about reproductive and racial justice, the candidate then doubles down.

“If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening?” he continued. “Because it’s really creepy. And I’m pretty sympathetic to that, actually. So, you know, how hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion in California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”

As CNN‘s Andrew Kaczynski notes in the outlet’s reporting on the comments, Vance also says in the same interview that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”

Although his office tried to walk back the statements when contacted by CNN by noting that he more recently said that he accepts that “people do not want blanket abortion bans” and that he supports certain exemptions for rape and maternal health, those podcast comments stand as their own testament to Vance’s mentality when speaking with supposed fellow travelers.

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