Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear defended his controversial comments about GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance in a follow-up MSNBC interview Tuesday, saying criticism of his comment about Vance needing to "go through" a rape-induced pregnancy was mere deflection.
"Obviously, I’d never wish harm on anyone," Beshear told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "It's just – again, deflection. Trying to make himself and Donald Trump the victims."
Beshear came under fire after he suggested to "Morning Joe" that Vance should have to "go through" a pregnancy resulting from rape to understand some women's experience.
"JD Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape ‘inconvenient.’ Inconvenience is traffic. Make him go through this," he told MSNBC.
Vance responded to Beshear's interview in a post on X saying, "What the hell is this?"
"Why is @AndyBeshearKY wishing that a member of my family would get raped?! What a disgusting person," Vance wrote.
Beshear told Mitchell later in the day that he meant no harm against the GOP nominee and claimed Vance was trying to "deflect" from scrutiny over his abortion comments.
"Of course not. It's ridiculous, but it's also a deflection. JD Vance knows that he and Donald Trump are so wrong on this issue, so he's trying to make himself a victim," he said.
Beshear referred to three women who spoke during Monday night's DNC about their traumatic pregnancy experiences and said they were the real victims of anti-abortion policies that Republicans support.
"Obviously, I'd never wish harm on anyone. It's just – again, deflection. Trying to make himself and Donald Trump the victims," he said.
Abortion rights was a central theme Monday night at the convention. In his address, President Biden claimed that former President Trump would "do everything to ban abortion nationwide" if re-elected. Trump has called for returning the issue to the states, in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Beshear's attack on Vance derived from a 2021 interview where Vance explained his personal dilemma with abortion exceptions in instances of rape.
During his run for U.S. Senate in 2022, Vance was accused by Democrats of calling rape "inconvenient." His remarks on that subject were taken out-of-context, according to fact-checkers; he never referred to rape as "inconvenient" but rather said that society shouldn't view pregnancies resulting from such circumstances that way.
William Martin, communications director for Vance, reacted to Beshear's attack in a statement.
"After speaking on the DNC main stage last night, Harris campaign surrogate Governor Andy Beshear went on national television this morning and explicitly called for a member of Senator Vance’s family to be raped. His comments are disgusting, vile, and should not be tolerated in American politics."
"We call on Kamala Harris to immediately repudiate Governor Beshear’s comments and demonstrate that regardless of partisan disagreements, this kind of violent rhetoric has no place in our public discourse," Martin said.
Fox News' Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
