- Braun said on Tuesday he would be okay with having states decide whether
interracial marriage is legal. - He later claimed to have misunderstood the question even though it was asked in 2 different ways.
Republican Sen.
"He was asking questions related to my point on the issue back in Indiana," Braun told Insider at the Capitol on Wednesday, referring to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb's veto of a ban on transgender girls from competing in female sports. "And it was just kind of a clumsy response, and that's why I put out a quick clarification."
On Tuesday, Braun told Dan Carden at The Times of Northwest Indiana that he believes Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that established the right to an abortion — was a case of "judicial activism."
That prompted Carden to ask whether Braun applies that same basis to Loving v. Virginia, the unanimous 1967 ruling finding that state-level
"When it comes to issues, you can't have it both ways," said Braun. "When you want that diversity to shine within our federal system, there are going to be rules and proceedings that are maybe going to be out of sync with what other states would do. It's the beauty of the system and that's where the differences among our 50 states in points of view ought to express themselves."
Asked point-blank whether he would be "okay with the Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states," Braun replied in the affirmative.
"Yes," he said. "You're not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too."
The full exchange is below:
Braun issued a statement later on Tuesday claiming that he misunderstood the question, adding that there's "no question that the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race, that is not something that is even up for debate."
Asked by Insider on Wednesday what he thought the question was about, given the clarity with which it was originally presented, Braun said he simply wasn't paying attention.
"We were on the topics of Roe v. Wade, and that vote that recently occurred in Indiana, and then he led into another sequence," said Braun. "I didn't really— I was focused on those two, and didn't pay attention to that. You know, it was a clumsy response once I got into it, that's why we made a clarification."
The Indiana Republican indicated that he was still thinking about an earlier question about Holcomb's veto, which Braun said was about "biological males" and the issue "raised quite a stir in the state."
He then affirmed his support for interracial marriage.
"It should be very clear where I'm at there, and that's an extrapolation that wasn't fair given the context of what we were talking about," he added.