Donald Trump’s running mate once described the former president as “America’s Hitler” in a leaked message to a friend.
JD Vance said Trump was a “moral disaster” in an exchange posted in 2016, and agreed Trump was a “total fraud” in public who didn’t care about regular people and called him “reprehensible.”
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance wrote in a message to a friend. “How’s that for discouraging?”
Trump named the Ohio Senater as his running mate on Monday, choosing a one-time critic who became a loyal ally and is now the first millennial to join a major-party ticket at a time of deep concern about the advanced age of America’s political leaders.
“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,” Mr Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.
Mr Vance, 39, rose to national fame with the 2016 publication of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.
He was elected to the Senate in 2022 and has become one of the staunchest champions of the former president’s “Make America Great Again” agenda, particularly on trade, foreign policy and immigration.
But he is largely untested in national politics and is joining the Trump ticket at an extraordinary moment.
An attempted assassination of Mr Trump at a rally on Saturday has shaken the campaign, bringing new attention to the nation’s coarse political rhetoric and reinforcing the importance of those who are one heartbeat away from the presidency.
Mr Vance himself faced criticism in the wake of the shooting for a post on X, formerly Twitter, that suggested President Joe Biden was to blame for the violence.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Mr Vance wrote.
“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Related: Tories took £50k from firm linked to man jailed for exploiting his domestic staff
