At the recent vice presidential debate, Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio argued that when it comes to abortion rights, he and his party have to “do a better job at winning back people’s trust.” When the senator sat down last week with The New York Times, he used nearly identical phrasing, prompting a worthwhile follow-up question.

“What does that mean, though?” the Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked. After noting the frequency with which the GOP candidate uses the line, she went on to ask whether Vance was prepared to “moderate his position” on reproductive rights.

Vance suggested that wouldn’t happen.

Days earlier, the Ohioan also told reporters that if Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Republican administration would defund Planned Parenthood.

On “Fox News Sunday,” host Shannon Bream asked Vance where Planned Parenthood patients would go for health services if the Trump White House ended federal support for the clinics. The Republican acknowledged that Planned Parenthood “does a lot of things that a lot of young women, a lot of young families need” — a striking admission, to be sure — but he never quite got around to answering the question.

Meanwhile, the senator’s running mate also appeared on Fox News over the weekend, and Trump commented on the same issue in provocative ways. The Hill reported:

Former President Trump said Sunday that a national abortion ban is “off the table,” but he left the door open on the conversation by saying “we’ll see what happens.”

“Let me just tell you, I think that it’s something that’s off the table now, because I did something that everybody has wanted to do, I was able to get it back to the states,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo, adding that overturning Roe v. Wade was something “every Democrat and Republican wanted.”

Trump’s efforts to rewrite recent history were, of course, utterly bonkers. The idea that “every Democrat” wanted Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe is the opposite of reality.

As part of the same comments, he added that “everybody” wanted Roe to be overturned, which we also know to be demonstrably false: Poll after poll after poll found that a majority of Americans — including plenty of GOP voters — opposed the Republican-appointed justices’ ruling in Dobbs.

But it was also of interest that when looking to the future, Trump added: “Now, we’ll see what happens.”

So, on the one hand, the Republican nominee believes the issue has been “defused.” On the other hand, the “we’ll see what happens” phrasing suggests Trump still believes the door is open to additional changes.

The result is ongoing uncertainty about an issue of great importance to many voters — doubts fueled by the former president’s frequent contradictions. Six months ago, for example, Trump said he was “looking at” possible restrictions on contraception, only to take a dramatically different position a day later.

Similarly, earlier this month, the GOP nominee said he’d veto a federal abortion ban if it came across his Oval Office desk. Now, his position is “We’ll see what happens.”

The Republican Party’s efforts to “win back people’s trust” on the issue appear to be off to a rough start.