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- By Levi Rickert
Native Vote 2024. In the long anticipated question of who this year’s Republican vice president nominee will be, former President Donald Trump on Monday chose Ohio U.S. Senator J.D. Vance to be his running mate on the Republican ticket.
Vance is a 39-year-old who is serving in his first term in the U.S. Senate and gained recognition authoring the Hillbilly Elegy, a book about the tribulations of growing up in poverty in rural Kentucky and Ohio.
The announcement came via a social media post on the Truth Social website on Monday afternoon just after the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisc.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
Vance replaces former Vice President Mike Pence who ran in the last two presidential elections as Trump’s running mate. Vance is considered a newcomer to national politics who has found his footing as a staunch conservative.
In 2016, Vance was an ardent critic of Trump who referred to him as “reprehensible” and called him “cultural heroine.” By 2022, Vance became a Trump supporter and was endorsed by the former president in his senatorial race in Ohio.
About two hours after the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday at a political rally in Butler, Pa., Vance blamed the incident on President Joe Biden.
"Today is not just some isolated incident," Vance posted on X. "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."
A climate change denier, Vance is a big supporter of big oil and of the gas industry. He opposes solar power and electric vehicles.
Vance is an election denier who embraces the belief the 2020 presidential race was stolen. He has said that he would not have voted to have the election certified.
On May 1, 2024, Vance told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on The Source he doubted former Vice President Pence’s was ever in danger during the January 6 insurrection.
“OK, well, I’m truly skeptical that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger. I think politics and politics people like to really exaggerate things from time to time,” Vance replied when Collins asked him if being considered as Trump’s running mate gave him any “pause.”
Like Trump, Vance supports a nationwide ban on abortion. He even says he opposes exceptions for rape and incest survivors. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Vance said.
Vance called Social Security and Medicare the “biggest roadblocks to any kind of real fiscal sanity.”
President Biden weighed in on Monday afternoon on Vance being chosen to be Trump’s running mate.
“Here’s the deal about J.D. Vance. He talks a big game about working people. But now, he and Trump want to raise taxes on middle-class families while pushing more tax cuts for the rich,” Biden posted on X.
In the event of a vice presidential debate this fall, Vance will faceoff with Vice President Kamala Harris.
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