Who Is J.D. Vance- Why Trump Nominated Him for VP - WSJ
Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance is now on the 2024 ballot as former President Donald Trump's running mate and vice president pick. The best-selling author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and a former Never Trumper in 2016, Vance has had a meteoric rise in the Republican Party.
WSJ's Molly Ball breaks down how Vance got the nomination, and what it means for the future of the GOP.
WSJ's Molly Ball breaks down how Vance got the nomination, and what it means for the future of the GOP.
Transcript
00:00J.D. Vance has had a meteoric rise in the Republican Party, from a best-selling author
00:05and never-Trumper in 2016,
00:07I'm a never-Trump guy. I never liked him.
00:10to winning a U.S. Senate seat at age 38. And now, he's former President Donald Trump's
00:16running mate.
00:17Elect Donald Trump in 2024. God bless you, sir.
00:20Vance is very much a creature of the new Republican Party that Trump has shaped in his image.
00:24By picking Vance, Trump is showing he's doubling down on this MAGA agenda. It's a full-throat
00:29populist, national conservative ticket.
00:33Here's why the Trump-Vance ticket is a big deal for the future of the MAGA movement and
00:38the GOP.
00:39J.D. Vance first catapulted to fame in 2016, after he published his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.
00:47The book detailed his experience growing up poor in Rust Belt, Ohio, and making it to
00:51Yale Law School.
00:53It was a smash hit and became a Ron Howard-directed movie in 2020.
00:57I know I could have done better, but you've got to decide you want to be somebody or not.
01:06We're trying to paint this white nationalist movement as a movement primarily of poor and
01:11working class Americans, when the truth is that the alt-right is actually led by better
01:16educated and, frankly, pretty well-to-do people.
01:19In his initial foray into the public spotlight, Vance was very much anti-Trump. His book made
01:25clear that he was a conservative. Many people latched onto it as an explanation for Trump's
01:31sort of surprise success in the Republican Party and then in the election.
01:36When Vance launched his campaign for the Senate in 2021, his stance on Trump underwent a big shift.
01:42I obviously didn't fully appreciate the president's appeal in 2016.
01:45Yeah, he said some bad things about me, but that was before he knew me and then he fell in love.
01:50He even described himself to me in one interview as a flip-flop flipper on Trump, saying that
01:55he had similar policy views but was against Trump as a person, until he realized that
02:01Trump was advocating for the policies that he supported.
02:04While running for Senate, Vance was one of several pro-Trump candidates in the primary.
02:09But in one debate, Vance was the lone candidate to oppose a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine.
02:15And that caught the eye of Trump's inner circle.
02:18But a no-fly zone, it sounds nice, like we ask the Russians not to fly planes over Ukraine.
02:23What it means in practice is American Marine Corps pilots, Air Force pilots and Navy pilots
02:28getting in dogfights with Russian jets, which the problem with that is it's not in our vital national interest.
02:35That impressed Donald Trump Jr. and he began advocating for Vance's candidacy, including with his father.
02:48Trump's unique brand of conservative politics has been reshaping the core tenets of the
02:53Republican Party since he was elected in 2016, like tighter borders and a retreat from the world stage.
03:00He's changed the GOP so much that the Republican National Committee recently revamped its platform
03:05to a new, stripped-down version, one that focuses more on Trump himself than on specific policy decisions.
03:12Trump has been changing all of those stances to the point where many older Republicans
03:17feel it's no longer recognizable.
03:19At the same time, a movement has arisen in Trump's image that believes in his policies
03:24and believes that the Republican Party should be reshaped in his image.
03:28Believers in this movement, referred to as the New Right or National Conservatives, take
03:33Trump's impulses and turn them into doctrine.
03:36Vance has become one of their leading voices.
03:39The American people, again, they need people who put the interests of their own citizens
03:44first, of our own citizens first, and that's what this entire movement is all about.
03:48And I think that's what the Trump presidency will be about if we give him another shot,
03:52as I expect that we will.
03:54When Trump selected Mike Pence to be his running mate, that was a pick very much intended to
03:58reassure Republican voters.
04:00Pence being a traditional conservative and evangelical Christian was someone who regular
04:05Republicans who saw Trump as sort of an Arivist in their party could look at Pence and say,
04:10all right, that's someone I can trust.
04:12Fast forward to 2024, it's clear that Trump no longer sees a need to share power with
04:17that wing of the Republican Party.
04:20Right after Trump's attempted assassination in July, Vance was one of the first Republicans
04:25to publicly cast blame at the Biden campaign for the shooting.
04:30As Republicans unite around the Trump-Vance ticket after the July 13th attack, Democrats
04:35remain in disarray following President Biden's disastrous debate performance in June.
04:41Biden has vowed to stay in the race despite continuing calls from fellow Democrats to
04:45step away from his place at the top of the ticket.
04:49I think there's a whole pool of voters there in the center of the electorate who really
04:52are not being spoken to by either candidate because of the way these tickets have shaped
04:56up.
04:57Senators Marco Rubio from Florida and Tim Scott from South Carolina were also contenders
05:01on Trump's VP shortlist.
05:04Both could have appealed more to minority voters, something that Trump has historically
05:08struggled with.
05:10Voting Vance allows Trump to shore up support among the white working class.
05:15Ohio is also part of the Rust Belt, and the most crucial states in this election are those
05:20Rust Belt states.
05:21That white working class vote is a vote that is also very crucial throughout those Rust
05:26Belt battlegrounds.
05:27There is a hope by some of Vance's backers and some on Trump's team that he could potentially
05:33galvanize those voters even more than Trump already does to juice Republican turnout in
05:38those states.
05:39What was the Russia collusion hoax?
05:41It was about destroying Donald Trump.
05:42This ridiculous New York fraud case, it's about destroying the guy's wealth before he
05:47reenters the Oval Office.
05:48It's good to see you, man.
05:50Thank you.
05:51He is really a bet on the future as well, a bet on the future of the Republican Party
05:55and a bet on the future of the populist conservative movement.
05:59Trump would never say he's anointing a successor, but Vance was decades younger than the other
06:04potential picks that were under consideration for vice president.
06:07And in choosing such a young person to be on the ticket with him, there's an unavoidable
06:12implication that Trump has sort of chosen an heir, chosen someone to take the mantle
06:16of that MAGA movement and go forward with it, whether it's as a future president himself
06:21or simply as someone who is poised to exert great influence in the Republican Party, continuing
06:27to shape it along those populist conservative lines for years or potentially decades to
06:32come.