Posted on 07/16/2024 10:49:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
On July 15, former President Donald Trump announced that Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) was his vice presidential pick, ending months of speculation.
“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 J.D. Vance,” former President Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Based on Mr. Vance’s published works and interviews, here are 39 things to know about the Ohio Republican who is set to share a ticket with the former president.
Mr. Vance was born on Aug. 2, 1984. Turning 40 in August, he’s the first millennial on a major party ticket and one of the youngest vice presidential candidates in history.
Mr. Vance was raised Protestant, but later converted to Catholicism, officially becoming Catholic in August 2019.
Mr. Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri Vance, whom he met at Yale Law School. They married in 2014.
Ms. Vance currently works as a corporate litigator. She has clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John. Roberts and then-appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
She would be the first Hindu spouse of a vice president.
Mr. Vance has three children: Ewan, 6, Vivek, 4, and Mirabel, 2.
Mr. Vance is commonly considered to be a populist conservative.
His political ideology is often placed alongside the ranks of former President Trump, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and pro-Trump swaths of the House Freedom Caucus.
In a December 2023 interview, he described his hope to “push the Republican Party in a more pro-worker direction” and capitalize on the working-class gains made by the likes of former President Trump.
Mr. Vance famously grew up in a lower-class family in Middletown, Ohio, and often experienced financial and familial hardships growing up.
Mr. Vance first became well-known for his best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” published in 2016, which details his time growing up in poverty-stricken areas of the Rust Belt.
The book traces the drug abuse issues and financial hardships experienced by many in the white working class, and was seen by many as a primer on the population that propelled former President Trump to victory in 2016.
Mr. Vance’s book was adapted into a namesake Netflix film in 2020.
In both his memoir and the movie adaptation, Mr. Vance explains his experience of the decline of the Rust Belt, and the impacts it had on those living there.
Speaking about his native Middletown, Mr. Vance wrote in Hillbilly Elegy, “There is a lack of agency here— a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself.”
He’s made clear that this experience has continued to shape his political life and decisions.
Despite growing up in Ohio, Mr. Vance has said he considered his great-grandmother’s house in rural Kentucky as “home.”
“I always distinguished ‘my address’ from ‘my home,’” Mr. Vance wrote in Hillbilly Elegy.
“My address was where I spent most of my time with my mother and sister, wherever that might be. But my home never changed: my great-grandmother’s house, in the holler, in Jackson, Kentucky.”
Mr. Vance’s parents, Donald Bowman and Bev Vance, divorced when he was very young, leaving Mr. Vance to be raised by his mother.
In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Bowman is described as having been largely absent from Mr. Vance’s life, though the two reconnected later in life.
Mr. Vance says both of his parents struggled to maintain stability in their employment, both largely worked a series of odd jobs over the years.
At birth, Mr. Vance was named James Donald Bowman.
Later, Mr. Vance temporarily took on his stepfather’s surname, Hamel.
Eventually, he settled on Vance, which belonged to his mother and grandparents.
Mr. Vance in his book recounts in detail his mother’s struggles with opioid addiction, including heroin.
Mr. Vance notes that this is a familiar tale in Appalachia and the Rust Belt more broadly, with widespread pervasive hopelessness having become the norm for many.
His mother’s struggles with addiction shaped his childhood, contributing to an often-fractious home life.
The struggles of home life, compounded by his mother’s struggles with drug addiction, eventually led to Mr. Vance living with his grandmother.
His grandparents, James “Papaw” Vance and Bonnie “Mamaw” Vance, moved to Kentucky, unmarried and with child, in the 1940s, but ultimately divorced. They remained on good terms.
In his memoir, Mr. Vance credits his time living with his grandmother while he was in high school with helping him to commit to his studies and, ultimately, escape the poverty he grew up in.
Like many in the Rust Belt of the late 20th century, Mr. Vance’s grandparents were pro-union Democrats.
Mr. Vance describes their attitude toward politics in “Hillbilly Elegy,” writing, “All politicians might be crooks, but if there were any exceptions, they were undoubtedly members of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition.”
Mr. Vance said the exception was 1984, when his grandfather voted for President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Vance served in Iraq as a Marine combat correspondent during the mid-2000s.
Mr. Vance has a dual undergraduate degree in political science and philosophy from Ohio State University. He graduated summa cum laude in 2009.
Mr. Vance earned a juris doctorate from Yale Law School in 2013. While there, he met law professor Amy Chua, who persuaded him to write his memoir. Ms. Chua is known for her own best-selling memoir “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
While studying law, Mr. Vance served on the editorial staff of the Yale Law Journal.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Mr. Vance worked at the law firm Sidley Austin LLP before joining billionaire Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital in San Francisco.
Mr. Thiel later spent more than $10 million in support of Mr. Vance during his 2022 Senate run.
Mr. Vance started Narya, based in Ohio, an “early-stage venture capital firm focused on using technology and science to solve for the future,” according to its website.
In 2016, Mr. Vance left California and returned to Ohio, where he helped launch an effort to combat opioid abuse in the state.
Called “Our Ohio Renewal,” the project was short-lived, and the online domain for the website is no longer accessible.
Mr. Vance was a contributor for CNN back in 2017.
“This will be the first ever CNN commentator ever put on a presidential ticket,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said on the air following the announcement of the pick.
Years before being a staunch ally of former President Trump, Mr. Vance wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which he called the former president “unfit for our nation’s highest office.”
Since 2016, Mr. Vance said his views on the former president have changed, and he’s recanted his statements from 2016.
The reason for this, he said, was seeing how former President Trump handled the job.
In a May interview with CNN, he told anchor Dana Bash, “I didn’t think he was going to be a good president, Dana, and I was very, very proud to be proven wrong. It’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to get him elected.”
Given how his views had changed in the four years since 2016, Mr. Vance voted for President Trump in 2020.
Mr. Vance won the 2022 GOP Senate primary amid a crowded field in Ohio to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).
Boosted by former President Trump’s endorsement, he defeated former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel and Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan.
Mr. Vance developed a relationship with former President Trump’s oldest son during his 2022 Senate campaign, when the younger Trump campaigned for him.
Since then, Mr. Trump has signaled that he favored Mr. Vance in the “veepstakes.”
In a recent podcast episode, Mr. Trump said, “everyone knows, I’ve sort of been for J.D. Vance.”
Mr. Vance has been in politics just over a year and a half, joining the Senate—his first political office—in January 2023.
Since joining the Senate, Mr. Vance has regularly voted with the most conservative wing of the Senate Republican conference on an array of key issues, from foreign aid to government finance.
The political arm of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation rates Mr. Vance as voting with conservative positions 93 percent of the time.
Mr. Vance has shown a willingness to work with Democrats on some major pieces of legislation.
He and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) co-sponsored a rail safety bill following the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. He also worked with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on a bill to claw-back executive pay from large failed banks.
Neither of the bills has advanced to a vote on the Senate floor.
In the Senate he serves on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; and the Special Committee on Aging.
In June 2023, Mr. Vance announced that he would use his power as a senator to place holds on all future nominees to the Department of Justice.
He cited the department’s prosecutions against the former president as the reason for the hold.
Mr. Vance has indicated he supports leaving abortion to the states.
He said that former President Trump’s “leave it to the states approach” is “pragmatic,” and endorsed the Supreme Court decision allowing mifepristone to continue being shipped.
In 2022, Mr. Vance expressed support for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) 15-week abortion ban.
In an interview that same year, Mr. Vance said, “I'd like it to be primarily a state issue.”
Mr. Vance has spoken supportively of the 2023 United Auto Workers strike.
Elsewhere, he’s said he supports collective bargaining “as an abstract matter.”
Though he served in the Iraq War, Mr. Vance has since been critical of the conflict, saying he made a “mistake” in initially supporting it.
“I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to, that the promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke,” he said on the Senate floor in April.
Mr. Vance has been critical of continued U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.
Since taking office, he’s voted against every Ukraine aid package that’s come to the floor. He’s called for Europe to bear the brunt of financing the war.
Mr. Vance wrote in an April op-ed for The New York Times that the current trajectory of the war is unsustainable for either the U.S. or Ukraine. He said that the notion that Ukraine will reclaim all its land lost to Russia is “fantastical.”
Mr. Vance supports aid to Israel.
In a May 2024 speech at the Quincy Institute, Mr. Vance gave a contrast between supporting Israel and Ukraine.
With Ukraine, he said, there’s “no strategic end in sight” and that the Europeans are not doing their fair share. But Israel, he said, is “doing the most important work to give us missile-defense parity.”
He also opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and applauded President Trump for withdrawing from it in 2018.
Mr. Vance has also taken a tough stance on China, encouraging the United States to focus its efforts there.
Between war in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, Mr. Vance said, America has “to pick and choose” where it invests its resources.
“We should be focused on our own problems, and that’s mostly China,” Mr. Vance said in April.
“My argument is the Chinese are focused on real power. They’re not focused on how tough people talk on TV or how strong our alleged resolve is. They’re focused on how strong we actually are, and to be strong enough to push back against the Chinese, we’ve got to focus there, and right now, we’re stretched too thin.”
Yesterday there were 56 things.
RE: Yesterday there were 56 things.
That was Politico, this is Epoch Times. I think the latter publication has a better track record of trustworthiness.
Democrats and Liberals are already highlighting his Mother’s drug addiction as a way to denigrate him. I experienced this on FB just a few minutes ago. Democrats have no honor and are using this as an excuse for Biden’s relationship with his son.
From his wikipedia page:
“In 2019, Vance co-founded Narya Capital in Cincinnati with financial backing from Thiel, Eric Schmidt, and Marc Andreessen.[56] In 2020, he raised $93 million for the firm.[57] With Thiel and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton”
One for each year of his biological/mental age.
Nah, there's actually only one salient fact about him: He's demented.
Regards,
So then, the liberal view of addiction is what?
Liberals are critical of addiction problems in the family of a Republican? But liberals are compassionate and understanding about addiction problems in the family of a Democrat?
This sounds like there are some major inconsistencies in the liberal views here.
He’s also a world-class ultra marathon and triathlon competitor who often gets to the finish line 30 minutes ahead of the pack. /s
It would be totally valid for Dems to badmouth Vance on the basis of his mother being a drug-addict - if she were visiting the White House on a regular basis, dropping bags of cocaine there, counseling the president, committing felony after felony (drugs, illegal gun possession), helping to wash money, etc.
Regards,
I’ll need to look at the 56-list. This one is missing H1B, etc. Probably no list will be complete. While he is now committed to Trump’s agenda, it would still be good to be aware of where he contrasts with Trump as those are topics he might wield influence.
Bookmark
Vance has a net worth of $5 million.
This tells me he's unable to make quick judgments or quickly determine/ascertain if a person is credible and or legitimate. In addition, I personally find people who flip like that regarding their political persuasion or beliefs, quite suspect. We'll see what happens.
I hope we are all allowed to change our minds as time and events happen.
Based on these criteria of quickly evaluating someone, many of the people on Free Republic were not enthusiastic Trump supporters in 2015-16. There were quite a few Freepers who supported others during that primary election cycle in 2015-16. Yet today, almost everyone here supports Trump. His actions as president impressed many who had not supported him in the primaries.
Typical. I suppose Hunter’s hooker and cocaine problem is just fine.
3. He’s Married to Usha Chilukuri Vance
Mr. Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri Vance, whom he met at Yale Law School. They married in 2014.
Ms. Vance currently works as a corporate litigator. She has clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John. Roberts and then-appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
She would be the first Hindu spouse of a vice president.
Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, quit her job as a corporate litigator at DNC-affiliated Munger, Tolles & Olson, within minutes of hearing that JD had been selected as President Trump’s Vice-President nominee and running mate. Usha Vance worked in Washington DC for the firm.
SAN FRANCISCO – […] Usha Vance confirmed that she will be stepping aside in a separate statement to SFGATE.
“In light of today’s news, I have resigned from my position at Munger, Tolles & Olson to focus on caring for our family,” she said. “I am forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve had at Munger and for the excellent colleagues and friends I’ve worked with over the years.”
[…] Usha worked as a litigator in the firm’s San Francisco and Washington, D.C., offices, where her practice mainly dealt with “complex litigation and appeals in a wide variety of sectors, including higher education, local government, entertainment, and technology, including semiconductors.” It also stated that she lives in Cincinnati with her husband and three children. (read more)
According to India Today – “JD Vance, who was once a Trump critic, said he had the full support of his Indian-origin wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, who was present at the convention.
[…] Usha attended Yale Law School, where she met her future husband, JD Vance, in 2013. They worked together to organise a discussion group on the subject of “social decline in white America”, The New York Times reported.
The two quickly bonded soon after, with JD Vance often referring to Usha as his “Yale spirit guide”. They got married in 2014 after graduating from Yale Law School.
Usha holds a BA in history from Yale University and an MPhil in early modern history from the University of Cambridge.
During her time at Yale, Usha served as the executive development editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. She participated in the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, people.com reported.
JD Vance and Usha have had three children since their marriage in 2014 — two sons, Ewan and Vivek, and a daughter, Mirabel.
Usha has been instrumental in her husband’s political journey, often accompanying him to political events and providing guidance and support.
She has been involved in her husband’s political campaigns, including his successful Senate campaigns in 2016 and 2022. She has also been registered to vote as a Republican in Ohio since 2018. JD Vance has publicly acknowledged her influence, expressing gratitude for her role in shaping his decisions and opportunities. (read more)
JD Vance will likely lead the transition team for President Donald Trump, and it will be very useful for him to have Usha Chilukuri Vance beside him to help staff some of the more important legal positions around the office of the presidency.
From the descriptions of her legal endeavors in/around Washington DC, Usha Vance, likely knows some of the best legal minds available.
In fitting with the theme of the nomination, another San Francisco lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, closed the night at the RNC with a Sikh prayer.
WATCH:
Harmeet Dhillon Delivers Sikh Prayer At Close Of RNC's First Night
Some people are able to determine the legitimacy, credibility and character of individuals very early on. Some are clearly not capable or equipped to do so.
Note the significance of date on the link below.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3301055/posts?q=1&;page=1
Thanks for the info. You nailed it right from the start.
Speaking only for myself, during the 2016 primaries I thought the Donald Trump campaign could be a set up to assure Hillary Clinton’s election. He was a New York (ex, as it turned out) Liberal, sometime Democrat, and friends with the Clinton’s. I had no trust that his rhetoric and promises were sincere. In other words, I know exactly how J.D. felt back then, and today when we’re both delighted to have been proven so wrong.
☺
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