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:
In any case the answer is: J.D. Vance flat out admitted he was wrong about Trump. Those derogatory quotes were not from last year. they were from nearly eight years ago, before Trump had served a day as President. J.D. Vance admitted he was ignorant about who Trump was, and that he had swallowed what the media said about Trump. And he became an acolyte. He didn't have the change of heart because he wanted to get in good with Trump. He had a change of heart because he knew he was wrong, and has become very close with the Trump family. 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 likely sold J.D. Vance as well.
Vance did not call him America’s Hitler.
Last night we watched the movie “Hillbilly Elegy” on Net Flix.
I would urge every one on the Free Republic forum to watch that movie, even if it requires joining Net Flix and later cancelling.
The movie delivers a very powerful message about how one’s inner self can gain control and provide guidance under the most extreme adversity of life.
J. D. Vance is a fantastic example of American ability to rise to exceptional height in the face of devistating adversity. He represents everything that Donald Trump is fighting for
JD Vance is 39 not 31.
If the journalist cannot get the basic facts that I am not wasting the eyesight.
He knows Vance shares his views more than any others
To carry on
It is about electoral politics. PA is quite probably the state that decides this year’s election
Vance will resonate with a lot of blue state working class Dems in PA who see the GOP as the “party of the bosses and Wall Street”.