What happened Donald Trump has named J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator who once suggested the former president was "America's Hitler", as his 2024 vice presidential running mate.
Who said what Vance, a former marine and venture capitalist who shot to fame with his 2016 memoir turned Netflix movie "Hillbilly Elegy", once "rarely missed an opportunity to criticise" Trump, said the BBC. During the 2016 presidential campaign Vance described Trump as "cultural heroin" and a demagogue who was "leading the white working class to a very dark place".
More recently, however, his embrace of the former president has "fuelled his rapid rise", said The New York Times. In Vance, Trump has a "feisty and often aggressive ally who will appeal to the former president's base", said the Los Angeles Times. Trump's decision defied speculation that he would "choose a person of colour or a woman to broaden his political base". Instead he went for a "mini-me" offering "red meat" to his Maga supporters, said The Guardian.
Joe Biden offered a withering response to the selection, which he said simply showed again that Trump "surrounds himself with people who agree completely with him".
What next? Vance will bring "debating skills and the ability to articulate Trump's vision" to the Republican ticket, said the Associated Press. According to Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, Vance could also help Trump in states he narrowly lost in 2020, such as Michigan and Wisconsin. |