This is part of The Hill’s ongoing series looking at Donald Trump’s potential vice presidential picks.
Less than a month after taking office in his first political office, Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) already had a crisis on his hands.
A train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, Vance’s home state, sending flames and black smoke into the air and triggering a massive cleanup process that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Within weeks, Vance accompanied former President Trump to the site of the derailment and introduced legislation with fellow Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D) to improve safety protocols and prevent future derailments like the one in his home state.
“You want to talk about a moment that just crystallizes why you are there,” he said. an ally of Vance. “It was a trial by fire and I think he passed it with flying colors.”
Vance, 39, has enjoyed a rapid rise in the political arena.
He is a native of Ohio, enlisted in the Navy and graduated from Yale Law School. He gained national attention with his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which chronicles his upbringing and family history of poverty and dependency in Appalachia and offers his insights into the white working class and the causes and effects of economic insecurity.
Vance won a Senate seat in 2022, his first run for political office, and quickly emerged as a face of the New Right and the MAGA movement in Congress. He has been outspoken about his opposition to continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, but he has also reached out to unlikely collaborators like Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Now, his conservative and populist views, his willingness to fiercely defend those views and the relationship he has built with the former president and Donald Trump Jr. have put him squarely in the running to be Trump’s running mate.
“I see him as the future of our party, the most articulate conservative populist voice in our country, and I believe he would make a great vice president,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is running for Senate . in Indiana, he told The Hill in an interview.
People close to Vance have said that the senator and the former president are well aligned on policy, and some have suggested that Trump likely appreciates how Vance is unapologetic about his views and willing to take the fight to mainstream media outlets such as CNN and CBS.
“JD was not only a leader of the America First political agenda in the Senate, but he was also a courageous warrior for my father, defending him from all the left-wing legal warfare coming out of the Swamp,” Donald Trump Jr. told The Hill. “While many Republicans are weak and crumble when things get tough, JD has a backbone of steel and is not afraid to fight.”
Vance’s position as Trump’s top ally and vice presidential candidate may surprise some, given his past comments about the former president. Vance, during the 2016 campaign, called then-candidate Trump “harmful” and “reprehensible” and posted a since-deleted tweet calling Trump an “idiot.”
These comments were fundamental to an approximately$1 Million Attack Advertising Campaignduring the 2022 Ohio GOP Senate primary, launched by groups supporting Vance rival Josh Mandel.
Vance, who ultimately won Trump’s support in that bitter primary race, has been candid about his evolving views on Trump.
“My opinion about Donald Trump, I’ve been very clear about that, is, look, I was wrong about him,” Vance said in a recent interview with CNN. “I didn’t think he would be a good president…and I was very, very proud that I was proven wrong. It’s one of the reasons I’m working so hard to elect him.”
Sources close to Vance and Trump acknowledged there may have been some initial skepticism on the former president’s part. But they said Vance’s candor about his change of heart and his loyalty to the former president in recent years helped solidify their relationship.
“I think that says more about Donald Trump than anyone else,” said Banks, who Vance supported in his Senate run. “He forgave a lot of Republicans for what they said in 2016 or even 2017, and as president he proved his worth. He won over many of us.”
Despite being one of the faces of the America First movement in the Senate, Vance is eager to work on certain issues, something his allies said underscores his desire to get things done for his constituents.
He introduced legislation with Brown, Baldwin, Warren, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.), among others.
However, he has attracted the most attention as one of the main opponents of additional funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Vance has received plaudits from many Republicans for being the most articulate voice among conservatives who want to end U.S. intervention in the war.
“Sixty billion dollars is a fraction of what would be needed to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor,” Vance wrote in an April statement.New York Times op-ed, as the Senate considered a national security supplement that has already been sanctioned. “But this is not just a question of dollars. Fundamentally, we do not have the capacity to manufacture the quantity of weapons that Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.”
In recent weeks, Vance has made more headlines for downplaying the threat to former Vice President Mike Pence during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol and for saying he would accept the results of the 2024 elections, “if we have free and fair elections”. Both comments were made during CNN interviews and both echoed rhetoric used by Trump.
And in a sign of Vance’s loyalty to the former president, the Ohio senator made an appearance outside the courtroom in May to attack former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who was on the stand as part of the trial looking into an alleged fraud scheme. hush money paid to an adult film actress. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) and Sen. Tim Scott (RS.C.) were among the other potential vice presidential candidates who stopped by New York during the trial.
As Vance’s name has increasingly come up as a potential Trump running mate, the senator has repeatedly said that he has not spoken to Trump about the possibility of joining the ticket and that he is interested in helping the former president however he can.
Vance has young children and allies said the senator will prioritize his family when making any decisions about his political future.
“He will serve in any capacity in a second Trump administration where he can do more,” a Vance ally told The Hill. “He likes the Senate. He’s good at being a senator. If he’s going to be vice president and be ready or be an advocate, he’s ready to do that.”
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