If you haven't heard, Trump picked Ohio senator JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick, which is going to make things very interesting seeing the stuff Vance has said about him in the past.
From Reuters:
Eight years ago, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, J.D. Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump. Publicly, he called the Republican presidential candidate an "idiot" and said he was "reprehensible." Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler .
But by the time the former president tapped Vance to be his running mate on Monday, the Ohio native had become one of Trump's most ardent defenders, standing by his side even when other high-profile Republicans declined to do so. James David Vance's transformation - from self-described "never Trumper" to stalwart loyalist - makes him a relatively unusual figure in Trump's inner circle. Democrats and even some Republicans have questioned whether Vance, who wrote a bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" and is now a U.S. senator from Ohio, is driven more by opportunism than ideology.
CNN has also come out with more:
Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, a leading candidate to be Donald Trump’s vice president, liked tweets in 2016 and 2017 that harshly criticized Trump and his policies — including one speculating that Vance could serve in former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s administration.
Other tweets liked by Vance said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” called him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs,” and, in a since-removed set of tweets, harshly criticized Trump’s response to the deadly 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia – something Vance now defends Trump over. Vance’s past anti-Trump stances have been well-documented, but these new examples, unearthed by an extensive review of Vance’s past social media activity, demonstrate they were more widespread and scathing than previously known.
. . . His subsequent transition from vocal Trump critic to staunch supporter has been widely scrutinized. Vance has become a key surrogate for the former president and routinely defends Trump on television, including during his hush money trial in New York last month. Vance also helped orchestrate Trump’s June 6 fundraiser in San Francisco with tech industry donors. Trump is expected to meet with congressional Republicans in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
In a statement to CNN, Vance cited Trump’s “many successes in office” and claimed that realizing the “corporate media and Deep State’s” coordinated efforts to undermine Trump changed his perspective.
Vance claims he "changed his perspective" because of Trump's supposed successes and the "deep state." However, an incident in which Trump publicly humiliated him in 2022 during an Ohio rally may give a more honest perspective of his embrace of Trump
According to at the time CNN editor Chris Cillizza:
At a rally on Saturday night for Ohio GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance, Trump made sure the crowd knew that Vance was subservient to him – big time. “J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad,” Trump said. Trump was reacting to a New York Times story that reported Vance had not actually invited Trump to campaign with him in the state. Instead, Trump’s team had simply told Vance that they would be coming to Ohio for a rally. Trump’s campaign stops have always been, primarily, about Trump.
You can tell that by the amount of time he spends talking about himself (a lot) versus how much time he spends talking about the candidate for whom he is ostensibly campaigning (very little). But he has rarely thrown a candidate he endorsed so directly under the bus as he did Vance over the weekend.
“He made J.D. Vance look like a mouse, not a man,” former Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock told CNN of the moment. “It was humiliating.”
JD Vance went from calling Trump "America's Hitler" in 2016 to allowing Trump to publicly humiliate him at a 2022 rally. Vance was probably picked because he embodies the quality Trump looks for - a complete lack of self-respect.
