WASHINGTON – Days after his attempted assassination, former President Trump announced on Monday, the opening day of the Republican National Convention, that Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) will be his running mate for the November presidential election.
“As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The first Oklahoma lawmaker to react, Congressman Kevin Hern (R-Tulsa), took to X in support of the Trump-Vance ticket shortly after the announcement.
“Senator JD Vance is a champion for conservative values and I am proud to have partnered with him on multiple critical issues in Congress,” Hern wrote.
Fellow Congressman Josh Brecheen (R-Coal County) also posted on X, writing that Vance is committed to putting “American citizens” first.
“It has been an honor to work with Senator Vance during my first term in office and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role,” Brecheen wrote.
Vance once fiercely positioned himself as an alternative to Trump, calling him “reprehensible” and famously likening him to “cultural heroin.” In addition, a screenshot shows Facebook messages from 2016 in which Vance wrote that the former president might be “America’s Hitler.”
The screenshot originates from a conversation between Vance and Georgia state Democratic representative Josh McLaurin, a brief roommate of Vance’s while enrolled in Yale Law School, which pictures their discussion of Trump’s 2016 election bid.
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance wrote. “How’s that for discouraging?”
However, before being elected senator in 2022, Vance shedded self-proclaimed title of “never Trumper” to closely align with Trump and his campaign.
In the wake of Trump’s attempted assassination, Vance took to X where he said that the Biden campaign directly catalyzed the attempt, which he wrote is “not just some isolated incident.”
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance said. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Some of Vance’s work as a first-term senator has been bipartisan, such as introducing a rail safety bill with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) after the East Palestine train derailment and working with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts).
Despite this, Vance introduced many other bills reflecting conservatism, including legislation to ban gender-affirming care for minors and to eliminate diversity programs in the federal government.
Vance also opposes abortion nearly entirely, praising the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. He has since fiercely campaigned against abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, but opposes a national abortion ban.
Vance came to prominence after his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which details his childhood and working-class family in Middletown, Ohio. The memoir shares stories of Vance’s mother, who struggled with drug addiction, leading him to spend much of his adolescence with his grandmother.
After graduating from high school, Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a corporal with the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. After graduating from Ohio State University in two years, Vance enrolled in Yale Law School where he met his wife, Usha Chilukuri.
Before the announcement, Trump narrowed the finalists for Vice President to three: Vance, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Just hours prior to the announcement, sources confirmed both Rubio and Burgum were notified they were not the former president’s choice.
Despite not being picked for the ticket, Rubio voiced support for Vance in a short post on X, with the Florida senator simply writing, “#TrumpVance2024!!!”
Both Trump and Rubio are residents of Florida, which could have complicated a Trump-Rubio ballot due to the Twelfth Amendment’s requirement that two candidates cannot be from the same state in order to receive electoral college votes there.
Burgum also expressed support on X in a statement, calling Trump the “strongest leader to enter the political arena in modern American history.”
“I look forward to campaigning for the Trump-Vance ticket to Make America Great Again!” Burgum wrote.
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters also expressed support for the pick in a post on X Monday afternoon.
“There is no better choice to fight the woke liberal agenda than J.D. Vance. It’s an unstoppable ticket,” Walters said.
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews.net.
