After J.D. Vance’s past criticism of Donald Trump began threatening his standing among conservatives last week, the Hillbilly Elegy author turned GOP Senate hopeful took to the former president’s favorite network to beg for forgiveness. “Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance lamented during a Monday appearance on Fox News. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open about the fact that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.” Vance’s anti-Trump tweets, which had been deleted, were resurfaced by CNN just as he officially launched his campaign for the Ohio seat that Republican senator Rob Portman is vacating at the conclusion of his term next year.
His comments that date back to 2016 and 2017 included him referring to Trump as “reprehensible,” backing “Never Trump” presidential candidate Evan McMullin, and ostensibly responding to Trump’s Access Hollywood scandal by tweeting, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.” In an October 2016 tweet, Vance also wrote, “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.” During Trump’s first months in office, Vance continued his condemnation of the new president, writing, “In 4 years, I hope people remember that it was those of us who empathized with Trump’s voters who fought him most aggressively.”
However, on Monday, Vance attempted to reassure Fox News viewers that he has completed a 180-degree turn when it comes to all things Trump-related. “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,” the best-selling author said. One of Vance’s potential competitors in the 2022 Ohio race is already capitalizing on his flip-flopping, as Democratic congressman Tim Ryan noted, “[Vance] and I have exactly one thing in common—neither of us voted for Donald Trump.“ In an attempt to hold the “hypocrite” Vance accountable for the opportunistic pivot, The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis, an anti-Trump conservative columnist, revisited a conversation the pair had five years ago, during which Vance said he is not a Trump supporter because “[Trump] is the most-raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people” and he gives the white working class “an excuse to not look inward [and] to not ask tough questions about themselves and their communities.”
Vance has attracted strong backing from at least one Trump supporter with deep pockets. In March, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel reportedly donated $10 million to a super PAC pushing Vance to run for Senate. Vance’s Protect Ohio Values super PAC has also collected a “significant contribution” from the Mercer family. The Mercers heavily backed Trump’s presidential bid in 2016, and Robert Mercer reportedly funded the popular pro-Trump Breitbart News. On July 2, Vance appeared on Breitbart News Daily to promote his campaign and told the right-wing outlet, “What I really hate about what the left is doing right now is…they’re trying to make us hate our history.”
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