(CNN Spanish) – JD Vance was chosen by Donald Trump as his running mate to become Vice President of the United States. The Ohio senator ranged from criticizing Trump to embracing the former president’s populist agenda. Who is he and how did he come into Trump’s inner circle?
Vance is a venture capital investor and author best seller From the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy”. He was elected senator in 2022 after defeating Trump in the controversial Republican primary.
Vance is a military veteran. He is 39 years old and was born in Middletown, Ohio.
Six years ago, Vance was a leading voice in the Never Trump movement during the 2016 election and he has a well-documented history of public opposition to the former president.
Vance has endeared himself to the right wing of the Republican Party, including Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who has included the Ohio Republican as a guest on his podcast and publicly praised him. .
In the Senate, Vance has been a vocal supporter of Trump, often voting in loyalty to the former president’s interests. He opposed the Ukraine aid bill earlier this year, adopting Trump’s criticism of providing more aid.
In addition to his credentials as a supporter of Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Vance also adds his ties to traditionally liberal Silicon Valley to his presidential candidacy. He recently helped organize a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco, hosted by prominent venture capitalists David Sachs and Chamath Palihapitiya.
‘I never liked him’: Watch how JD Vance changed his opinion of Trump
Vance liked tweets in 2016 and 2017 that were harshly critical of Trump and his policies, including a speculation that Vance could serve in the administration of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, CNN confirmed.
Other tweets that Vance ‘liked’ included saying Trump committed “serial sexual assault”, the senator describing the then-candidate as “one of America’s most hated, villainous, idiotic figures”, and, In a series of tweets that have since been deleted, Vance sharply criticized Trump’s response to the 2017 deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, for which Vance is now defending Trump.
Vance’s past anti-Trump stances have been well documented, but these examples, uncovered in June through a detailed review of Vance’s past social media activity, show that they were more widespread and strident than previously known .
As CNN’s KFile previously reported, Vance deleted previous anti-Trump tweets ahead of his July 2021 announcement that he would run for Ohio’s vacant Senate seat. Vance once wondered privately in February 2016 whether Trump was “America’s Hitler”, and a few months later wrote in The Atlantic that Trump was a “cultural heroine”.
Vance also said that he had considered voting for Clinton, but ultimately said that he would vote for independent candidate Evan McMullin for president in 2016.
Vance managed to win Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 Ohio Republican Senate primary after a year-long sustained effort to adopt a new image as a prominent supporter of the MAGA platform, at meetings at Mar-a-Lago and through Welcomed the former President. Appearance on Fox News.
In a show of loyalty, Vance was one of several potential Republican running mates and lawmakers who stood with Trump in a New York courtroom during his criminal trial over the hush money payments.
He has also made clear that his view of the constitutional limits on the vice president’s role in certifying election results differs from that of former Vice President Mike Pence, who drew Trump’s ire in January 2021 when he interfered in the confirmation process. Chose not to. Electoral vote for Joe Biden.
Vance told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in May that he was “highly skeptical that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger,” despite calls from some members of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol for Pence to be hanged. Was given.
In another interview on CNN in May, Vance said he would commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election “if it is a free and fair election.”
“If you feel there were problems, you have to be willing to pursue those problems and try to move your case forward. And of course, if we have a free and fair election, I will accept the results,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
With reporting from CNN’s Alison Main, Tammy Luhby, Kanita Iyer, M Steck, Andrew Kaczynski and Allison Gordon