‘Unfit for office’: 10 times JD Vance criticized Trump before winning vice presidential nomination – National

Donald Trump Trump has a new running mate in his campaign to become the next president of the United States: a partner who has previously criticized Trump’s leadership abilities, calling him “unfit for office” and even describing him as “reprehensible.”

on Monday, Trump announced the Ohio senator said on his social media platform, Truth Social. J.D. Vance It was his choice for Vice President.

Vance, 39, won a Senate seat in 2022 with Trump’s support. If elected, he would become one of the youngest vice presidents in U.S. history.

The Republican was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio. He joined the Marines and served in Iraq before earning degrees from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He later worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

Vance also became famous with his memoir, which was a bestseller in 2016 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Cultural CrisisThe book was published during Trump’s first campaign for president.

Before becoming an ally of Trump, Vance harshly criticized the former president in a series of interviews, op-eds and now-deleted tweets.

But Vance began to change his tune, and in a 2021 interview with CNN, he said he regretted his criticism of Trump.

“Like many people, I criticized Trump in 2016,” Vance told CNN 2021“I regret my misjudgment of this person.”

Here are some of Vance’s past critical comments about Trump.

In a 2016 interview Charlie RoseVance commented that Trump shifted the focus of the white working class away from engaging in constructive politics and toward a politics centered on “blame.”

“I’m a ‘never Trump’ guy,” he told Ross, referring to the 2016 US presidential election. “I never liked him.”

He then went on to tell Ross that he didn’t like Trump.

“I know that the media asks me to be the voice of the white working class. But as someone who doesn’t like Trump, I kind of… I understand where Trump voters are coming from, but I also don’t like Trump himself, and it makes me realize that maybe I don’t fully belong in either world.”

exist Hard Ball In October 2016, Vance talked about Jessica ReddersA woman accused Trump of sexually assaulting her during a flight in the late 1970s. Trump has denied the allegations.

Vance suggested to former host Chris Matthews that she was telling the truth about the attack.

“It makes you feel like, fundamentally, it’s kind of a ‘he said, she said’ situation. At the end of the day, do you believe Donald Trump, who always tells the truth (joking), or do you believe the woman on the tape?”

In 2016, Vance was interviewed on the podcast Matt Jones Podcast, One of the hosts said, “I can’t stand Trump because I think he’s a complete liar and he’s taking advantage of these people.”

Vance agreed, saying, “Me too.”

“I agree with you about Trump because I don’t think he’s one of those people, I don’t think he actually cares about people.”

in a Interviewed by NPR in August 2016Vance said many members of his family had planned to vote for Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“My dad is a Trump supporter, and I love my dad, and I always say, ‘Dad, you know, Trump isn’t actually going to improve anything,'” Vance said.

“But I think I’m going to vote for the third party because I can’t stand Trump. I think he’s very toxic and is leading the white working class to a very dark place,” he added.

Vance wrote a Review articles In 2016, he published an article in The Atlantic using America’s drug addiction and opioid crisis as a metaphor for Trump’s leadership.

“Donald Trump may feel good to many, but he cannot solve America’s growing social and cultural crisis, and his eventual downfall will be brutal,” he wrote in the article.

He then compared Trump supporters to addiction.

“In this election season, many Americans seem to have found a new painkiller. It, too, promises a quick escape from life’s troubles and an easy fix to the growing social problems in American communities and culture. It requires nothing but a humble presence and a few enablers. It enters people’s minds not through the lungs or blood vessels but through the eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump,” he said.

“Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some people feel better. But he can’t fix what ails them, and one day they will realize that,” Vance wrote.

Vance later wrote that Trump was offering “an easy way out of pain.”

“He could cure drug addiction by building a wall in Mexico and keeping out drug cartels. He would save America from humiliation and military defeat through indiscriminate bombing. No credible military leaders supported his plans, but that didn’t matter. He never provided details on how those plans would be implemented because he couldn’t. Trump’s promises were needles in America’s collective veins.”

In August 2017, Vance joined X (formerly Twitter) and Criticizing Trump Response to white supremacist violence in Charlottesville.

Vance tweeted: “There is no moral comparison between the anti-racism protesters in Charlottesville and the murderers (and their ilk).”

Earlier, the former president said he had “no doubt” Members of both parties The violent protests in Charlottesville are to blame.

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Trump Widely criticized In his comments, he said the protests involved “many sides” rather than condemning neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups.

Vance wrote another April 2016 Commentary “New York Times”, The headline read: “Why Trump’s anti-war rhetoric resonates with white Americans.”

“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office. But to those who feel humiliated by his defeat, he promises that we will win again,” Vance wrote.

CNN investigative reporter Andrew Kaczynski discovered Vance’s deleted tweets, as well as Posts deleted on X in October 2016 Vance criticized Trump’s immigration stance.

“Trump scares people I care about. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Therefore, I hold him reprehensible. God wants better for us,” Vance wrote.

In another deleted post On October 7, 2016, Vance told X: “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us as we apologize for this man. God help us.”

On the same day, The Washington Post Released videos Trump boasted about groping and kissing women without their consent.

“I courted her, and I failed. I admit it,” Trump told Access Hollywood “I did try to have sex with her. She was married,” host Billy Bush said in the video about former show producer Nancy O’Dell.

In an interview in September 2016 PBS NewsHourVance said racism and xenophobia fueled Trump’s rise.

“Donald Trump’s support certainly has its elements based on racism and xenophobia, but a lot of these people are really hard-working people who are struggling in ways that really matter,” Vance said.

Given all these negative reviews, why did Trump still choose Vance as his running mate?

“J.D. Vance has said negative things about Donald Trump in the past, which is really interesting because he doesn’t even distance himself from the fact that he did that,” Jennifer Lawless, a professor of public policy at the University of Virginia, told Global News.

“He said he had seen the facts and no longer believed these things, that he had been skeptical but Donald Trump had shown him the way and that he had never been so happy to be wrong.”

She added that Vance was an example of how Trump could successfully persuade others. If Trump could persuade his vice president, he could persuade the American people.

“I think it’s strategic … He’s just saying he no longer believes that the concerns he had about Donald Trump in 2015 and 2016 were justified,” Lawless added.

— Jackson Proskow of Global News and The Associated Press