JD Vance is Trump’s pick for Vice President

The Hillbilly Elegy author who was once a Trump critic has styled himself as a MAGA warrior.

If Trump wins, Vance would be one of the youngest Vice Presidents in history and one of the least experienced in government. Picture: Rebecca Droke/AFP

Donald Trump has chosen 39-year-old JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate, a conservative populist who was once a Trump critic but has since become one of the former president’s closest allies.

JD Vance has styled himself as a MAGA warrior who is opposed to US aid to Ukraine and is strongly supportive of Trump’s agenda, including a major crackdown on illegal immigration and restrictions on abortion.

Trump announced his pick on Monday local time on Truth Social. “After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator JD Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote. He also praised Vance’s educational credentials and business experience.

Vance, a Republican Senator since early 2023, became famous as the author of the best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” which chronicled his poor childhood in a steel mill town in Ohio and his family’s struggles with drug addiction.

If Trump wins, Vance would be one of the youngest Vice Presidents in history and one of the least experienced in government, having only been a Senator since 2022 with no government role before that.

The choice of the Ohio Senator will help solidify Trump’s support in the Midwest, which will be a central battleground in the November presidential election.

Vance was once a Trump critic. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

Vance won Trump’s nod ahead of several others on the shortlist, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

Vance was once a Trump critic, suggesting in 2016 that Trump could be ‘America’s Hitler.’ He said then that he was a ‘Never Trump Guy’ and described Trump as ‘cultural heroin’ for the masses.

But by 2018, Vance began to change his opinion of the then president, and he supported Trump in the 2020 election and apologised for his previous criticism of him.

In 2022, Trump endorsed Vance for the Senate, saying, “Like some others, JD Vance may have said some not-so-great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades.”

Glenn Close in the Academy Award-nominated film adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy.

Hillbilly Elegy, which chronicled Vance’s hardscrabble upbringing in an Ohio steel town, was described by the New York Times as ‘one of the six best books to help understand Trump’s win.’ It described how Vance rose from his poor upbringing to serve in the US Marine Corps before graduating from Yale Law School. He then spent several years in business before running for the Senate in 2022.

Vance lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is married to Usha Vance, a lawyer who he met at law school. They were married in 2014 and have three young children.

Vance raised eyebrows this week when he effectively blamed Joe Biden and his campaign for the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Republican Vice President J.D. Vance embraces his wife Usha Vance. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance tweeted. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Vance harks from the isolationist wing of the Republican Party and has been a vocal critic of US aid to Ukraine, saying that Ukraine must accept that it will ultimately have to ‘cede’ some territory to Russia.