Dem
47
GOP
53
Very uncharacteristically, J.D. Vance has taken a different position than Donald Trump on a hot issue. Trump has warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol or any other brand of acetaminophen except maybe in an emergency. Just suck it up and be in pain. There is close to no evidence that there is even a correlation between pregnant women taking acetaminophen and their fetuses developing autism and zero evidence that acetaminophen causes autism, despite what Dr. Trump said.
Vance has now taken a different position. He said that if a pregnant woman is in pain or has a fever, she should ask her doctor what to do. He said that all drugs have side effects and doctors can best determine what is best for their patients.
This is one of the few times that Vance has clearly stated something different from Trump. There can be little doubt that this has something to do with his 2028 presidential campaign. Is he going to run in the "mostly like Trump but not as whackadoodle" lane? That could be the plan. He is much more calculating than Trump and doesn't say crazy things by accident. When Vance does say something crazy, like Haitians eating cats and dogs in Ohio, he knows exactly what he is saying, why he is saying it, and what the effect will be (usually to draw attention to himself). Maybe he is expecting the other Republican primary candidates to try to out-crazy each other and he will be the one who supports Trump's policies but is otherwise more or less sane. There could be a market for that, we don't know.
Yesterday in North Carolina, Vance said that at the funeral of Charlie Kirk, when Trump said he hated his enemies, he was joking. Is this also an attempt by Vance to ever-so-slightly distance himself from Trump's position, or is Vance simply confusing Trump with Jimmy Kimmel, who rarely hates but often tells jokes? Just keep in mind that Vance is very calculating and doesn't say things without thinking about his next campaign. It will be interesting to see if there are other times going forward where Trump has said something completely nutty or unpopular and Vance comes out with a much more digestible position. (V)