DONALD TRUMP JR: "I love this story. And then, he actually started to say, 'never Trump', because, like, he didn't have any information, but he also was the guy who didn't just say 'Okay, well, I'm just gonna accept Trump now and roll with it' he was like: 'I was wrong. I did not think that the brash guy from New York was gonna fight for X-Y-Z, I didn't think he was going to, like...I was wrong. I bought into the Media narrative' and he became, like a champion of the 'America First', of the MAGA cause, and just articulates it so well...so, we became friends, like I was, but I was crushed I love him, I was like, he's a Never Trump? I just couldn't even believe it. But, but it wasn't that he just 'came to terms' with it, like, he was just, like, 'I was wrong.' and from that point on, he just started fighting for all of the things that we believe in, so I, you know, I was really passionate about that. I was so passionate about having a guy that's young, that can take that mantle of "America First", not go back to that Neo-Con bullshit, where, you know, we haven't been in a war in 3 minutes, let's make sure we spend four trillion dollars and mortgage our children's future, you know, ah, what the Hell. I don't want it to end in four years after my father's done, right? I want that to be Conservatism going forward, not a reversion back to the stuff that has failed us and doesn't represent the people across the country, but it plays great in The Swamp. It's a big deal."
You can see this exchange at the 14:08 mark of this linked video from Rumble: LINK: Bongino x Tucker x Don Jr. - LIVE at the RNC (July 16, 2024)
NOTE: I tried to be as accurate as I could in the transcription of that segment, but there may be some minor mistakes here and there.)
So, when I saw people posting those quotes over and over again here on Free Republic (I had never heard them before) I had to wonder, because nobody ever had the dates associated with those quotes. They made it all sound like he said them last month, and only just changed his tune to get a job in the administration. So, those quotes look like they were made before Trump was elected in 2016.
When Trump was running, right up to his nomination, I couldn't really decide how seriously to take him. I didn't know much about him. At the time, if someone had asked me, I would have said "Trump was a rich New York real estate guy with funny hair who is into casinos and UFC, who had a television show that featured him telling people "You're Fired!" And that would have been the extent of it. I hadn't watched television for several decades, wasn't into pop culture, so that was it. That was all I knew. But when he was nominated, I took to him because...well, I wasn't going to pull the lever for Hillary Clinton, right?
So, after he came into office, the thing that made me sit straight up in my ideological chair was on June 1, 2017, in a globally televised speech from the White House Rose Garden, he simply withdrew from The Paris Climate Accord. With my own ears and eyes, I saw an American President actually put America first, and said (this is an exact quote):
The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries...
You can read the amazing speech, all of it, right here:
LINK: President Trump withdraws from the Paris Climate Accord in Rose Garden speech (June 1, 2017)
Then, on December 6, 2017, he announced that we were going to move our Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I had heard that for years, and every President said they were going to do it, but nobody ever did, because the world would explode into flames, everyone was sure about that.
But Trump did it. And you know what? The world didn't burst into flames. There wasn't even a peep.
The overriding point I make is, there were (and still are) many people who were not sure who or what Trump really is. But if I am going to make a judgement, I will do it on actions, and not words. And while it is impossible to argue the statistics of what he did for the economy, it was those two things in particular that sold me.
And I think those same things might have sold J.D. Vance as well.
1. I was Pres Trump when he came down the escalator. The country does not need career politicians or lawyers turned politician anymore.
One of the most disgusting things I saw during his term and the 2020 election was the number of ‘Republican’ politicians, at the local-state-federal levels, so complicit in the obvious fraud and their complete indifference to the Republican voters that put all of them in their respective positions.
2. I will jump for joy and do cartwheels and pop bottles if Vance is legit MAGA.
I’m at point where I don’t trust damn near anyone associated with Congress.
For me the tell will be how they handle all the illegals and who’s going to be responsible. If it’s Vance, I pray to God that he does a better than traitorous Pence did when he was supposed to deal with Fauci and Covid.
When I get up every morning, I begin by hating our lying garbage American Media [not in a health-threatening way, just a general "oh, here it comes again" way].
When I realized in late 2015 that future President Trump was going to take it to those Media scumbags, folding their lying teeth back every day, I was on board for good.
That's the only thing I need him to do for me. 
Great post!
In 2016 I was a Ted Cruz supporter. Battling with the Trump crew here got me banned. It actually turned out to be a long suspension... I was pissed enough that I wasn’t about to *ask* to come back... then one day maybe a year later I just discovered that I had posting privileges again. I guess JimRob gave “blanket amnesty” and I’m glad I was included.
In 2016 I held my nose and voted Trump, hoping (as you say) he would actually be conservative and not a Rat-leaning opportunist. Like you, withdrawing from Paris Accords got my attention. Then I began to notice how, in spite of his raw edges, he just DID THE RIGHT THING. (Jerusalem embassy was indeed another example.) He had all the right enemies too; people I considered enemies of America.
My point is this: like J. D. Vance, I *repented* of my Trump doubts. That’s what repentence is: a profound realization that I WAS WRONG, coupled with a CHANGE IN THINKING AND BEHAVIOR. So I understand Vance’s change of heart and it does not concern me.
I am quite happy that President Trump picked J. D. Vance — smart, articulate, young, future-looking — to be his Vice President.
And of course I am HUNDRED PERCENT ALL IN on President Trump now. I see a very strong spiritual force at work in his life. He has been anointed by GOD “for a time such as this”. And if God be for you, who can be against you?
FRegards and Blessings
In Hillbilly Elegy he recalls that when he was 8 or 9 years old he thought he was gay because he didn't like girls. A short conversation with his grandmother disabused him of that notion.