Vance makes his Sunday show sweep as Trump’s attack dog

JD Vance is taking on an increasingly prominent role for the Trump campaign: attack dog.

The Republican vice presidential candidate made three Sunday show appearances, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris as a “chameleon,” and trying to flip the script on Gov. Tim Walz’s characterization of him as “weird.”

The TV swing — two shows short of the “full Ginsburg,” a term for a politician appearing on all five major Sunday shows — was Vance's chance to slow Harris-Walz momentum and to address criticism he’s faced for his bumpy rollout, including his past comments about the former president, abortion stance, and “childless cat ladies" dig.

The media blitz comes as the Trump-Vance campaign has struggled to find its footing in the week after Harris announced Walz as her running mate — and after a week where former President Donald Trump did not stop in a battleground state. The Democratic ticket has hauled in millions, attracted large, enthusiastic crowds at rallies, and begun to turn the race’s poll numbers around: Harris now leads Trump in 538’s national polling average and is ahead in the critical blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll .

Vance was interviewed by anchors at ABC News’ “This Week,” CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” and CNN’s “State of the Union” in Cincinnati and was asked about being on the ticket with Trump, their policy vision for the country, and his recent attack lines against Harris and Walz.

Vance said calling him and Trump weird was “fundamentally schoolyard bully stuff” and “projection.”

“They can accuse me of whatever they want to accuse me of,” Vance told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I’m doing this because I think that me being vice president will help improve people’s lives, so I accept their attacks, but I think that it is a little bit of projection.”

Vance said he was eager to get out and “help define” the opposition.

“I think that unfortunately, Kamala Harris has run a campaign where every time she's in front of voters, a teleprompter is in between. She doesn't really talk to the media, like at all. She hasn't answered, I think, a single tough question from a reporter. So yeah, one of my jobs is to get out there,” Vance said on CBS Face the Nation.

Vance has emerged as an aggressive attack dog for the Trump campaign and has kept a busy schedule that has taken him from a hometown rally in Middletown, Ohio, after his selection to stops across battleground states where, for the past week, he shadowed the Harris-Walz campaign.

Trump meanwhile has had less of a presence on the campaign trail. He was absent from the key battlegrounds last week and held just one rally in Bozeman, Montana — where he was there to seek revenge on Sen. Jon Tester , one of the most endangered Senate Democrats in a state Trump will handily carry in November. He also attended fundraisers in Wyoming and Colorado, and held an impromptu press conference with reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he lashed out over crowd sizes and attacked Harris’ intelligence.

Vance was asked about the former president’s attacks on Harris’ racial identity . During an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump said Harris, whose parents are Jamaican American and Indian American, “happened to turn Black” in recent years and has repeated his false claims about Harris downplaying her racial identity.

Vance said Trump was trying to point out that Harris is “a chameleon.”

“She pretends to be one thing in front of one audience and she pretends to be something different in front of another audience,” Vance told CNN.

Vance accused Harris of flip-flopping on issues ranging from fracking to the border and said Trump was trying to paint Harris in his attacks as “a fundamentally fake person.”

“She is different depending on who she is in front of,” Vance said.

But he was also accused of doing that himself when it came to Trump. In the past, Vance has called Trump a “moral disaster” and wondered whether he was “America’s Hitler.” Vance said people should be allowed to change their mind when presented with a different set of facts and blamed the media for misrepresenting Trump.

“It’s reasonable to change your mind,” Vance said.

But even as Vance’s former comments and policy positions resurface, he has stood his ground. He said he did not regret previous comments he made about people with families having more votes — “it's not a policy proposal. It's a thought experiment” — and pushed the blame back on the opposing ticket. While calling for “pro-family” policies, Vance also backed more than doubling the child tax credit to $5,000 per family.

Vance, who is a Marine veteran himself, continued to go after Walz over how the Democratic vice presidential nominee has talked about his military service. Walz said he carried “weapons of war” when discussing gun control, and Republicans have attacked the timing of retirement from the Army National Guard just months before his battalion’s deployment to Iraq in 2005.

Walz retired to run for Congress. The Harris campaign said Walz had “misspoke.”

On CNN, Vance accused Walz of “lying about his own record” and his military service “for political gain.”

“I’m not criticizing his service. I’m criticizing dishonesty — dishonesty spoken in favor and for the purpose of political benefit,” Vance said.

Vance also defended his Indian-American wife, Usha Vance, after white supremacists have attacked her online. Nick Fuentes — a known white supremacist that Trump previously dined with in November 2022 alongside Ye, the rapper previously known as Kanye West — questioned Vance for being in an interracial marriage . But Vance pushed back saying only a “smart” and “lucky” man could marry Usha.

“My view is, look, if these guys want to attack me or attack my views, my policy views, my personality, come after me,” Vance said. “But don't attack my wife. She's out of your league.”

Despite all the recent attention on Vance and Walz, however, Vance said he agreed with Trump that the vice presidential pick does little to influence voters.

“I think President Trump's right about that, actually. I think most people are voting for Donald Trump or for Kamala Harris,” Vance said on CBS. “Most people, when they cast their ballots, they're basing it based on who the presidential nominee is, not the vice presidential nominee. It's just straightforward political reality.”

Isabella Ramírez contributed to this report.