MILWAUKEE — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) formally accepted the vice presidential nomination Wednesday night and used a speech at the Republican National Convention to reflect on his career and denounce policies that he says have hurt “forgotten communities” across the country.
Vance, whom former President Trump picked as his running mate on Monday, used the biggest moment of his political career to weave together his unique background – growing up in impoverished Appalachia and eventually becoming a Marine, venture capitalist and Ohio senator – with policies he says have caused untold harm to the country.
Bad trade deals, disastrous foreign wars and the drug epidemic topped the list, with Vance drawing a contrast between President Trump and President Biden on each issue.
“And every time along the way, small towns like my town in Ohio and neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and other states across the country saw their jobs shipped overseas and their children sent to war,” Vance said.
“Somehow, New York real estate developer Donald J. Trump was right on all these issues and Biden was wrong,” he said. “President Trump knew even then that we needed a leader who would put America first.”
The Ohio senator received a warm welcome from delegates and attendees, who chanted “JD! JD!” throughout the 37-minute speech, which Trump watched from a front-row suite.
Vance also peppered his speech with anecdotes about his grandmother, “Mamaw,” who helped raise him, and tributes to his mother, who is 10 years sober after years of battling addiction. As she was introduced and sat near Trump, delegates chanted “JD’s mom!”
The loudest cheers of the speech came when he explained that there were 19 loaded guns hidden around his grandmother’s house because “this frail old woman always wanted to keep within reach whatever she needed to protect her family, wherever she was.”
He is introduced to his wife, Usha Vance, whom he refers to frequently, noting that things between them have “gotten weirder and weirder” since he proposed to her during law school when he was more than $100,000 in debt, and that he “built a cemetery on a mountainside in eastern Kentucky.”
Vance, a one-time Trump skeptic, dug deep into Trump’s biography as he introduced himself on the national stage.
He returned to the Rust Belt many times.
He frequently mentioned his home state, as well as Michigan and Pennsylvania, three states that are crucial to Trump’s bid to retake the White House.
“This moment isn’t about me. It’s about all of us and who we’re fighting for,” the “Hillbilly Elegy” author said.
In a statement, the Biden campaign slammed Vance as “unprepared, unqualified and do-or-die at Donald Trump’s behest.”
Vance was nominated by President Trump to be his vice president, beating out Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R-North Dakota). He was the preferred candidate of Donald Trump Jr., who told reporters this week that he “couldn’t be happier” about the selection.
Though he’s only been in the Senate for just over a year and a half, the Ohio Republican has made his presence known by defiing leadership on a number of issues that have come to the forefront within his party, especially among staunch “America First” lawmakers.
Most notably, Vance has been the Senate’s leading Republican skeptic of increased aid to Ukraine and its support for the nearly two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia — an issue he did not directly address in his speech, as he handed out signs on the convention floor reading “Trump will end the Ukraine war.” He has consistently argued that the $61 billion that Biden and Congress approved in April was a waste of resources.
Instead, he has argued that to end the war, peace talks should be brokered that would involve Ukraine ceding territory in its east to Russia, an idea that has been flatly rejected by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and most of the Senate Republican Conference, who argue that Ukraine is fighting in the name of democracy.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a staunch supporter of Ukraine, said in April, when Congress was considering a supplemental national security bill, that Ukraine did not have enough personnel to drive out Russian forces and that he sharply criticized Vance’s assertions that the United States could not produce the necessary weapons materials.
“That’s nonsense,” Graham said in an interview at the time. “I challenge J.D. Vance to go to Ukraine and get a briefing from the Ukrainian military, talk to the Ukrainian people and tell me what he thinks. … We’re going to be back, and you’re welcome to come back.”
Vance has not visited Ukraine.
Additionally, Ohio senators clashed with Republican leaders after a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, released toxic chemicals and forced the evacuation of nearby residents.
Sen. Vance and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have been pressuring leaders to introduce rail safety legislation into Congress, but most relevant Republican leaders are opposed. Not surprisingly, the railroad industry also opposes the bill, which it sees as unnecessarily burdensome.
In Wednesday’s speech, Vance frequently assumed the role of Trump’s attack leader and defender throughout the speech, as he cited the state of the economy during his first term in office, his plans to confront China and the fentanyl epidemic.
“We put the American people first,” he declared.
“I promise you, I will be a vice president who never forgets where I come from,” he said at the end of his speech, “and when I walk into the White House every day for the next four years to help President Trump, I will do so for you, for your families, for your future, and for this great country.”
