From ‘never Trump guy’ to VP pick: 6 times JD Vance criticized Donald Trump before kissing the ring

'America's Hitler': 6 times JD Vance disparaged Donald Trump before kissing the ring

On July 15, the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention, former president Donald Trump ended the months-long suspense of who would be his running mate. Ohio Sen JD Vance grabbed the vice presidential ticket to compete for the No. 2 position in the event of a GOP victory in November. Vance entered the closest circle of Trump, turning into a stalwart defender of the 45th president on issues like the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Nevertheless, the Ohio Republican's flip-flop is rather nascent. Vance, who was once a 'never-Trumper', is known for his brutal attacks on the real estate mogul. Here are six instances where the new Republican vice presidential nominee publicly and privately trashed his soon-to-be potential boss.

1. JD Vance once called Trump 'America's Hitler'

Vance's earlier opposition to Trump backfired after he got the ex-president's thumbs up for his 2022 Senate race. An old law schoolmate of his shared a screenshot of their text messages made in February 2016 while the real estate mogul was on his first presidential bid. "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a**hole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," Vance's text to Josh McLaurin read. How's that for discouraging?" However, the former president decided not to retain any hostility while endorsing Vance for Senate. Trump said in his endorsement letter that Vance "may have said some not-so-great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades."

2. Trump VP pick earlier called ex-POTUS 'cultural heroin'

In a July 2016 op-ed for The Atlantic, Vance wrote, "Trump is cultural heroin," and the campaign promises he offered were "the needle in America's collective vein." The new VP pick also asserted the billionaire only proposed band-aide solutions like building a wall to resolve the complex issue of illegal migration at the southern border. "He makes some feel better for a bit," Vance remarked. "But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they'll realize it."

3. JD Vance couldn't 'stomach Trump' in 2016

"I think that I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump," Vance said to NPR's Terry Gross in August 2016. The intense anti-Trumpism he carried against the business magnate's first White House run heavily contradicts the current ring kissing. "I think that he's noxious and is leading the White working class to a very dark place," Vance said at the time, adding he would hold his nose and vote for Hillary Clinton if Trump was likely to win. The senator voted for third party in 2016 but jumped to the Trump camp in 2020.

4. JD Vance believed Trump was 'unfit for our nation's highest office'

In an op-ed for The New York Times in 2016, Vance declared an assertion that many Democrats now repeat. "Mr Trump is unfit for our nation's highest office," the Republican wrote nearly a decade before he turned into a hardcore MAGA ally.

5. JD Vance's tweet attacks against Trump post-Access Hollywood tape release

Following the release of the Access Hollywood tape, Vance unleashed a Twitter (now X) attack against Trump in October 2016. "Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us," read one of his tweets deriding the then-soon-to-be 45th POTUS who boasted about his behavior with women in the controversial tape. "Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this, I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us," Vance tweeted two days later. Another tweet from March 2017 read, "In 4 years, I hope people remember that it was those of us who empathized with Trump's voters who fought him the most aggressively." However, Vance deleted all these tweets before seeking Trump's endorsement for his congressional bid.

6. JD Vance was once a 'never-Trump guy'

A few weeks before Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, Vance told Charlie Rose that he "never liked" the soon-to-be president. "I'm a never Trump guy," he said in the interview. The future VP nominee authored a contentious memoir about his life in rural poverty and added that it was not any special quality that made people support Trump. According to him, people's resentfulness with "the media establishment, the political establishment, the financial establishment" rode them toward Trump.