Vice President Kamala Harris said in a newly released video that former President Donald Trump chose Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate to give the GOP presidential nominee an “endorsement” for his “extreme policies.”
“I’m not going to let anyone else have the power to choose me as their running mate,” Vance said in a statement.
“Trump was looking for someone who would give his extreme policies the stamp of approval,” Harris said. He said in the video.
“Make no mistake: J.D. Vance’s loyalty is only to Trump, not to our country,” she continued.
According to Fox News reporter Alexis McAdams, Ms Harris and Mr Vance had a brief and respectful phone conversation after Mr Vance’s nomination, after Ms Harris left a congratulatory voicemail.
Kamala Harris congratulates J.D. Vance, hopes they’ll “meet” at the vice presidential debate
Vice President Kamala Harris said former President Trump chose Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate as an “endorsement” of his policies. (Getty Images)
Harris also criticized Vance for saying in an ABC News interview earlier this year that if he had been vice president at the time, he would not have certified the 2020 election until states had submitted electors for Trump, noting in the interview that Vance believes unsupported claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.
“Unlike Mike Pence, Vance said he would have carried out Trump’s plan to overturn the results of the 2020 election,” Harris said.
Vice President Harris also pointed to comments Vance made during his 2022 Senate campaign, when he said he supported a nationwide ban on abortions at 15 weeks, with exceptions such as to protect the life of the mother. In her video, Harris also noted that Vance voted against a Democratic-led bill last month to protect access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), which was blocked by Senate Republicans.
“He supports a nationwide abortion ban and voted against protecting in vitro fertilization,” Harris said of Vance.
Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that Senator J.D. Vance was “only loyal to President Trump” and not to the United States. (Bizayev Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Harris also referenced Project 2025, a controversial effort organized by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and drafted by many conservatives, including former Trump administration officials.
Project 2025 has made a number of right-wing policy proposals if Trump wins the presidential election, including replacing civil servants with Trump supporters, abolishing the Department of Education, criminalizing pornography, eliminating DEI programs, cutting funding to Medicaid and Medicare, rejecting abortion as a medical treatment, and instilling Christian values in government.
Trump nominates Republican presidential candidate JD Vance as running mate
Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, whom former President Trump nominated for vice president, is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Trump has sought to distance himself from the plan, which critics say is an authoritarian, Christian nationalist scheme that would undermine civil liberties, saying he knows nothing about it and that parts of it are “totally ridiculous and terrible.”
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“And if elected, [Vance] “We will work with the Trump Administration to implement their extreme Project 2025 plan for a second term, which targets vital programs like Head Start and Medicare,” Harris said. “But we will not allow that to happen.”
