Trump critic turned ally JD Vance was elected vice president, offering a glimpse into the GOP's potential future

CNN
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Just two years after winning his first run for political office, Ohio Senator JD Vance becomes vice president. It will bring a new generation to power and offer a possible glimpse of the future of the Republican Party after the end of President-elect Donald Trump's second term.

Vance, 40, was the first millennial on a major party's presidential nomination and will be the third-youngest vice president in American history.

He is also a former Trump critic whose political evolution, culminating in his being named vice president to the president-elect, shows how Trump has taken over the Republican Party and reshaped it in his own image.

Vance grew up with his grandparents in southeastern Ohio while his mother battled drug addiction. After high school, he joined the Marine Corps, later attended Ohio State University and Yale Law School – where he met his wife, Usha Vance – and founded a business as a capitalist.

His 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” made Vance a star in a nation seeking to understand the Rust Belt appeal of Trump, who won the presidency for the first time that same year. At the time, while appearing as a political commentator, Vance was a harsh Trump critic.

In private messages before Trump's first election, Vance wondered whether he was “America's Hitler” and said in 2017 that the then-president was a “moral disaster.” In public, he agreed that Trump was a “total fraud” who didn't care about normal people and called him “reprehensible.”

He later changed his tune and fully accepted Trump in 2020. After courting Trump in person at Mar-a-Lago and through appearances on Fox News, he received the support of former President Vance in the late stages of a closely contested Republican primary for Ohio's 2022 Senate race, winning that race in his first run .

As a sign of his loyalty, Vance was one of several potential running mates and Republican lawmakers who stood by Trump's side during his hush money trial in a New York courthouse earlier this year.

He has also made clear that his view of the constitutional limits of a vice president's role in certifying election results differs from that of former Vice President Mike Pence, who drew the ire of Trump in January 2021 when he decided to withdraw not to interfere in the process of approval of the electoral votes for Joe Biden.

In Congress, Vance was a vocal opponent of foreign aid, opposing legislation that would send more U.S. aid to Ukraine amid the Russian war.

He has joined conservative culture wars and sponsored legislation aimed at gender-equitable care for transgender minors and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But he also took populist positions, supported tariffs, opposed corporate mergers and worked with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Trump sought to maintain excitement in his search for a vice president by delaying his selection until after the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, and on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

The two met at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club on the same day Trump was shot in the ear. Then, two days later, Trump called Vance and offered him a spot on the ticket. He announced his choice 20 minutes later on Truth Social.

Before Trump's election, the Ohio senator's supporters, including Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and conservative media figure Tucker Carlson, had argued that Vance had the strongest connection of a group of finalists that also included Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota to Trump has Gov. Doug Burgum and that he would be the most loyal choice, several sources familiar with the discussions said.

They argued that Vance could appeal to working-class voters, who, given his childhood in a poor Rust Belt town in Ohio, would be seen as crucial to winning key battleground states in November. They also pointed out that his wife, Usha Vance – the child of Indian immigrants – was someone who could appeal to minority voters, the sources said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine described Trump's selection of Vance at the convention as “a great day for Ohio.”

“He agrees with Trump's appeal to working men and women,” DeWine said, adding that he thinks it would be wise for Trump to choose someone younger. “Also, someone who shares his desire to expand the base of the Republican Party.”

Vance's selection led opponents to comb through years of podcasts and other interviews in which he had participated. And one of them — a 2021 podcast in which he told Fox News that the Democratic Party was led by “childless cat ladies,” including Vice President Kamala Harris — immediately sparked controversy when it resurfaced.

Democrats pointed to Vance's comments as evidence of a misogynistic GOP in a campaign that saw a significant gender gap, driven in part by Trump's appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices who subsequently overturned Roe v. Wade's nationwide protection of abortion rights would be lifted in 2022.

Vance has said for weeks that the comments were not intended to denigrate people who don't have children – particularly those who want to but can't – but rather were intended to be a criticism of the Democratic Party as “anti-family.”

Weeks later, he repeated false claims on social media that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets – and defended his decision to do so, even though there was no evidence to support those claims, by arguing that he was trying to to draw attention to the issue of immigration.

“If I have to make up stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then I will do that,” Vance told CNN's Dana Bash in September.