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Newly released messages appear to undercut vice-presidential nominee JD Vance’s claims that he had a change of heart about former President Donald Trump once he witnessed his achievements in office.
In 2021, while campaigning for the US Senate seat he now holds, Vance asked people “not to judge me based on what I said” previously about the man he called, variously, a “cynical a**hole,” a “moral disaster,” a “total fraud,” an “idiot,” and “America’s Hitler.”
“I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy,” Vance said at the time, adding that he in fact voted for Trump in 2020. “I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.”
However, The Washington Post obtained direct messages Vance reportedly exchanged privately on Twitter, in which he slammed Trump — a man he later deemed “the best president of my lifetime,” for his myriad shortfalls as commander-in-chief.
“Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy),” Vance reportedly wrote in February 2020.
That June, Vance predicted Joe Biden would beat Trump in the upcoming election, according to another Twitter DM seen by the Post.
“I think Trump will probably lose,” Vance wrote.
He would soon go on to claim, falsely, that the election had been stolen from Trump by miscreant Democrats.
In the same June 2020 exchange, Vance revealed that “Emperor Trump” had offered him a position in his administration, but that he turned it down.
In a statement responding to the Post story, Vance spokesman William Martin said the VP candidate was not in fact denigrating Trump in his past remarks, but rather, “establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trump’s populist economic agenda to increase tariffs and boost domestic manufacturing in Congress.”
“Fortunately, Sen. Vance believes that Republicans in Congress are much more aligned with President Trump’s agenda today than they were back then, so he is confident that they won’t run into those same issues within the party,” Martin said, criticizing the Post for withholding the identity of its source and calling the outlet’s reporting “unethical journalism.”
In July, Vance’s former law school roommate told The Independent that he believed the Ohio Republican was a “hypocrite” who had “sold his soul” in supporting Trump.
“I believe that he has adopted the MAGA mindset wholesale,” attorney Josh McLaurin said. “I think that he personally wants to see a lot more destruction of institutions and norms than your average elected Republican does. And I think that he’s allowing his deep-seated anger — and who cares where that anger is from — to motivate him to make this complete ideological conversion.”
