Who Is J.D. Vance, Trump’s Vice Presidential Pick?

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, selected Republican Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate in the 2024 presidential election on Monday at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin.

The 39-year-old author of “Hillbilly Elegy” was sworn into the U.S. Senate after his election in 2022. He was raised in Middletown, Ohio, largely by his 19-handgun-owning Christian “blue dog” Democrat grandmother. Vance served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Iraq War before graduating from Ohio State University and Yale Law School.

Vance met his wife, Usha, at Yale. They married in 2014. She’s a Gates Scholar, and a lawyer, and the two share three children together: two sons and a daughter. Usha Vance is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was raised in San Diego, California. (LEARN MORE: Maryland District Removes Parental Education Rights)

“Usha definitely brings me back to Earth a little bit,” Vance once told Megyn Kelly of his wife. “And if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am.”

J.D. Vance On Faith

Vance was raised in a Christian household but did not particularly engage with his faith as he entered early adulthood. Despite feeling close to God while growing up, Vance and his family did not necessarily engage in organized religion.

This changed as Vance grew older. In 2016, he told Deseret News that he’d been “going to church for the past year or so. Not as much as I should, but more than I have been. I’ve been thinking very seriously about converting to Catholicism.” (LEARN MORE: SCOTUS Hands Trump A Huge Win)

A year later he was baptized and received into the Catholic Church. “The hope of the Christian faith is not rooted in any short-term conquest of the material world, but in the fact that it is true, and over the long term, with various fits and starts, things will work out,” he told the American Conservative in 2019.

Some Of Vance’s Policies And Prior Political Work

• Vance set up an anti-opioid charity in 2016 after Trump was first elected President
• He was endorsed by Trump when running for office in 2021
• Vance was previously a never-Trumper but reversed his opinion after watching Trump’s repeated accomplishments in office
  • “I regret being wrong about the guy,” Vance previously said of Trump. “I think 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.” Later adding, “He’s the best president of my lifetime.”
• He shies away from “interventionist foreign policies, free market economics and ‘American culture writ large” says The Associated Press
• He shared concerns over the 2020 election
• Tucker Carlson and Peter Thiel are huge supporters of Vance
• He’s suggested the Biden administration is allowing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. in order to kill Republican voters:
  • “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl. . . . It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him,” he said

Defend American Values Today

Our nation is at a crossroads, dealing with pivotal issues that directly impact your daily lives – from ensuring religious freedom, fair and secure elections to fighting against inflation and advocating for secure borders. The strength of our community, the rights of our parents, and the protection of girls’ sports are not just political issues; they are the fabric of our society. It’s time to take a stand against crime, reform our institutions, and ensure the prosperity and security of our nation.

You have conversations with your loved ones, communities, and other networks every day about the things that matter most to you. You can now have those conversations with your lawmakers, so they know how to act on your behalf.  (LEARN MORE: Democrat Donor Spent $80M To ‘Silence’ Americans)

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