The Republican VP pick has not always seen eye to eye with the former president, but now they’re united by common goals
Once an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, JD Vance, a former Marine, venture capitalist and writer, has switched allegiances in favor of the 45th president. Can he help boost Trump into the White House again?
Vance, 39, who appeared on Trump’s short list of possible VP picks, which included the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Doug Burgum, has overcome severe personal hardships to position himself just one move away from the second most powerful office in the land.
Born into an impoverished, fatherless family, and to a mother who was a drug addict, Vance made one of the most critical decisions in his life by enrolling in the US Marine Corps just out of high school in 2003. This period, which saw the young man assigned to the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, marked “the defining chapter” of his life where he first developed a true sense of purpose. Vance is the first former enlisted veteran to appear on the ballot since Al Gore in 2000.
But the man from the American Rust Belt hasn’t always been a booster of the Orange Man. Indeed, his past views about the populist leader have been just as caustic and hate-filled as anything that has been featured in the liberal media.
“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 back in 2016. “How’s that for discouraging?”
On another occasion he wrote in The Atlantic that “Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein…Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.”
But in tongue-wagging Washington DC, where the politicians regularly shoot off their mouths, nobody would ever be able to build alliances if every single criticism was taken at face value. And when it comes to a controversial politician like Donald Trump, it would be impossible for him to find a running mate who never uttered a negative comment about him in the past. The best that Trump can do is find somebody who shares his political vision and forget about the personal attacks.
The one major subject where Trump and Vance see eye-to-eye is the Ukrainian conflict, which has turned into a bottomless money pit for the United States.
In early 2023, Vance and three dozen other Republican senators and House members forwarded a letter to Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, calling for a full accounting of the military assistance being sent to Ukraine to date.
“The report should include a full accounting of total budget authority in this area by appropriations account after transfers and reprogramming, as well as obligations, apportionments, and outlays for each account,” the letter demands.
So far, Uncle Sam has allocated $175 billion in aid to Ukraine, some $67 billion of that to defense-related needs (which also included expenditures for regional allies and the US military).
On another financial note, Vance echoed Trump’s position that the European Union must assume more responsibility for its own security amid thinly veiled threats Washington could dramatically scale back defense funding.
“The United States has provided a blanket of security to Europe for far too long,” the senator from Ohio wrote in an opinion piece for Financial Times, going on to describe America’s contributions to NATO and assistance for Ukraine as “an implied tax on the American people for the security of Europe.”
“The question each European nation needs to ask itself is this: are you prepared to defend yourself? And the question the US must ask is: if our European allies can’t even defend themselves, are they allies, or clients?”
Another area where Vance and Trump have nearly identical views is the Middle East, which is now witnessing one of its most dangerous conflicts as Israel continues its war against Gaza following Hamas’ deadly incursion into Israeli territory on October 7.
“We need to do something with Iran—but not these weak little bombing runs. If you’re going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard.”
Vance has gone on the record as saying that antisemitism must be prosecuted. “If you beat up a Jew and don’t face consequences, the attacks will continue and get worse,” he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in 2022. In response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on university campuses, Vance introduced a bill that would prohibit colleges and universities from receiving federal aid if they fail to remove disruptive encampments from their campuses.
Meanwhile, it’s no secret that Trump is fiercely pro-Israel. In 2017, he formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, followed later by the moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The move was highly disruptive and spawned violence in Gaza and the West Bank, where Palestinians proclaim East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Another thing about JD Vance that may have played into his favor is his wife, Usha Chilukuri, the daughter of Telugu-speaking Indian immigrants Krish and Lakshmi Chilukuri. While that may not seem like a big deal, the cultural climate in the United States has come down hard on Christian Caucasian men, and the idea of two White men at the helm may have been too much for American sensitivities to endure.
For anyone who thinks that may be a stretch of the imagination, just consider the cultural lineup at the Republican National Convention on Monday, where Harmeet Dhillon, a Sikh, kicked off the evening by singing a prayer to her religion’s god (hint: not the Christian god). This was followed by a speech from former porn star Amber Rose, complete with a tattoo emblazoned across her forehead (“Bash Slash,” which is an apparent tribute to her two children), who told the enthusiastic audience: “Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care of you’re Black, White, gay or straight, it’s all love.” Last but not least was Linda Fornos, an emigre from Nicaragua, who said “the Biden economy is driving prices through the roof – gas, groceries, everything.”
All things considered, the Republican Party is desperate not to become a caricature of the very people who support them the most: White Christian voters, many of whom – like JD Vance – hail from the impoverished hills of Appalachia and beyond. With a man like JD Vance as Trump’s running mate, a major check of the box has been made on behalf of cultural diversity. We’ll see if that makes a difference come November 5th.
