Republican candidate Donald Trump chose Congressman JD Vance as his running mate during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Trump selected Vance to join him in the campaign for the upcoming presidential election scheduled for November. So, what do we know about JD Vance?
Vance, a senator from Ohio, was born in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1984. He graduated from Middletown High School in 2003 and obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Ohio State University in 2009; he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 2013. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007, participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 2022 for a term that ends on January 3, 2029.
**His Relationship with Donald Trump**
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Vance was a vocal critic of Republican candidate Donald Trump. In a column published in February 2016, he wrote that "Trump’s actual political proposals, as they are, range from immoral to ridiculous." Vance described Trump in media interviews as "cultural heroin" and "opium for the masses." In October 2016, he called Trump "repugnant" in a tweet and described himself as "permanently anti-Trump." In a private message on Facebook, he referred to Trump as "America's Hitler."
By February 2018, Vance began to change his opinion, stating that Trump "is one of the few political leaders in America who recognizes the frustration present in large parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Eastern Kentucky." Consequently, Vance supported Trump in 2020. In July 2021, he apologized for calling Trump "repugnant" and deleted his 2016 tweets that criticized him. Vance said he now believes that Trump was a good president and expressed regret over his criticism during the 2016 election.
In October 2021, Vance reiterated Trump’s claims about election fraud, stating that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election due to widespread fraud, and on April 15, Trump endorsed Vance for the U.S. Senate. In response to historian Robert Kagan, who wrote an article in the Washington Post in November 2023 titled "Trump's Dictatorship is Increasingly Inevitable. We Must Stop Pretending," Vance sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland suggesting that Kagan be prosecuted for promoting "open rebellion" by Democratic-controlled states. Kagan noted that his article did not call for rebellion and remarked, "It is telling that their first instinct when attacked by a journalist is to suggest they should be locked up."
On June 30 of this year, Vance stated, "I believe the president has broad pardon power... but more importantly, I believe the president has immunity."
