CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings pushed back against Christine Quinn, the executive committee chair of the New York State Democratic Committee, who criticized Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance on Wednesday for allegedly changing his positions on abortion.
Quinn argued that Vance appeared “inconsistent” on abortion as he claimed to have never supported a national ban on the debate stage Tuesday night. Jennings called out Quinn’s contradictory statement by noting that Vice President Kamala Harris has changed several key policy positions that she held during her time in the U.S. Senate and as a 2020 presidential candidate.
“I’m still waiting for the real J.D. Vance to get on the stage and participate in the debate, because what we saw last night was a very sanitized J.D. Vance and someone who on critical issues like abortion, like the transfer of power, like all of that, didn’t really tell the truth and stepped away from many other things that he has said on the record, like being for a national ban against abortion,” Quinn said. “The number of positions that Vance and Trump are taking and have taken on abortion, it’s head spinning. And when someone is inconsistent on a critical, values issue like that, you know you can’t believe them and you know they’re just pivoting to get women in that case.”
“Just to make sure I understand correctly, if a candidate for president or vice president changes a position on a critical issue or a critical values matter, even one position, this calls into question for you their fitness to serve, because let me introduce you to Kamala Harris, who has changed every single position she took when she ran for president in 2020,” Jennings said.
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Quinn acknowledged that Harris changed her positions on several key issues including fracking, defunding the police, Medicare for All and immigration. She argued that the vice president showed “strength” by obtaining more information and deciding to change her positions.
“Kamala Harris has admitted that she has changed a position and there is nothing wrong with getting more info and changing a position, I think it’s actually a strength in a candidate,” Quinn said. “But Vance is trying to pretend, as is Trump, that he always had a position against a national abortion ban and that is not true. Change, converts are often your best supporters, but that’s not what’s happening.”
Jennings added that Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the Harris campaign have not been able to specify what limits on abortion they would support. The Minnesota governor signed the Protective Reproductive Options Act in May 2023 that codified abortion into law without any limits.
Harris notably said in 2019 that there is “no question” she was in favor of banning fracking, but her current campaign has walked back that claim by stating she would not ban the practice if elected into office. She also co-sponsored the Green New Deal in the Senate and backed a ban on the filibuster in order to get the legislation passed during her time in the Senate in 2019.
The vice president supported granting healthcare coverage to illegal immigrants during her 2020 campaign, compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Ku Klux Klan and called for the agency to be abolished in 2018. Harris’ current campaign ads are attempting to rebrand her as a tough-on-the-border candidate by revealing her intention to increase the number of Border Patrol agents, implement new technology to block drugs from entering the U.S. and spend more money to stop human traffickers.
Harris was once a staunch supporter of the “Defund the Police” movement during the Black Lives Matter riots in the summer of 2020. Harris’ then-press secretary Sabrina Singh walked back her support for the movement in October 2020 when she became then-2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/CNN)
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