Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance was invited to a town hall by Harrisburg pastor Rev. Joshua C. Robertson, who wrote an op-ed titled "I’m a black pastor. Here’s why I’m not endorsing Kamala Harris."
Speaking at the "Black Pastors United for Education" town hall, Vance engaged in an in-depth conversation about education issues and how Black children are particularly impacted.
Although the conversation focused mostly on education, and Vance mentioned the use of school vouchers and choice, he did not provide any other specific policy on how to better address the academic gaps that are being seen in schools and impacting Black children.
"The evidence that I've seen, again, I'm not an expert, but the evidence that I've seen suggests that school choice actually improves the quality of both the private schools and the public schools," Vance said to a room of mostly Black voters.
"I think school choice is part of but not the whole solution, but I think the rest of the solution is going to come from a combination of, hopefully, federal, state and local policymakers trying to solve this problem."
Vance said it’s important for people to remember not to take the Black vote for granted.
"And again, I know I'm speaking to a lot of Black voters in the room, I think it's important for people to know that they can't take your vote for granted," Vance said. "And that is the way I think that we're going to get school choice, is the people who support school choice start withholding their votes from politicians who refuse to do what the people want to do."
Toward the end of the town hall, Rev. Robertson and Vance exchanged awkward words when the Ohio senator criticized President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Vance’s comments led Robertson to check him.
Vance falsely claimed that under the Biden administration, a federal program emerged where if school districts didn’t allow transgender females to participate in girls' sports, the school would see a reduction of their free and reduced lunch money.
“But even if you disagree with me, I think that it is such a terrible thing to take food out of the mouths of poor children because they don't do what the Biden-Harris administration wants them to do. We got to do better. We've got to be willing to say, you live your conscience,” Vance said.
This led Rev. Robertson to ask Vance to keep things "respectful."
"I live my conscience, but can we all agree that poor kids ought to go to school with full bellies? That is simple, common sense that I'd like to get back to. But here's the here's one thing I will say, though, Senator Vance, with all due respect, please, Harris and Biden are striving to make America the best country that they possibly can,” Robertson said.
“And up until this point, we haven't said anything about the opposing. And I think we should keep it respectful because I believe that those people are doing the very best they can to serve the American people."
-ABC News' Hannah Demissie
