as Senator JD Vance He struggled to debut this summer as Donald Trump’s running mate.childless cat ladies” running on loop and it distracts from everything elsethe former president called for reassurance.
“Remember week one, when there were all these stories about Trump regretting his choice?” Vans said in a recent interview with NBC News on a campaign plane. “He was checking, ‘Hey, you’re under a level of scrutiny that no one really faces except me.’ And he just supported, gave moral support and made some jokes.”
Two months later, Vance’s disruptive presence on the Republican ticket is making headlines again. He strengthened baseless rumours About Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio – claims Trump repeated during a debate last week, he also suggested that he and Vance were not on the same page about abortion. But that early and encouraging phone call, which Vance called “heart-opening,” remains a window into the relationship he and Trump forged.
Trump was “extremely pleased with JD’s performance,” said a person who has spoken with Trump and is familiar with his thinking. The former president clicks with Vance “on a friend level,” said another person familiar with their interactions. They often talk on the phone.
“They have chemistry,” said Garrett Ventry, a Republican operative close to Trump’s world and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who was once considered Trump’s running mate. “They are friends.”
However, Trump has been known to get angry with people, even those close to him. His relationship with former Vice President Mike Pence ended when Pence refused to block the certification of the 2020 election results and Trump sat idly by on January 6, 2021, as an angry mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence”.
Even Trump’s mildest reprimands can lead to public embarrassment, such as when he claimed Vance was too far ahead of him. Saying “Meet the Press” on NBC He said he would veto Trump’s abortion ban.
“I haven’t discussed it with JD, in all fairness,” Trump said last week during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. “I don’t mind if he has a certain point of view or not, but I think he was speaking for me.”
Vance he said on Sunday In his response to “Meet the Press,” he “learned my lesson about speaking for the president before me and I actually talked about an issue.”
Vance is closely associated with the operating principle of Trump’s world: no one but Trump speaks for Trump. This creates an unusual relationship, as the vice presidential candidates are expected to speak for the ticket. Mark Short, Pence’s former chief of staff and contributor to “Meet the Press” and CNBC, warned that the mercurial Trump’s warm feelings toward Vance may be fading. at one point, Vance must find himself at the center of a story he doesn’t like.
“Who put up the story about Haitians stealing cats and dogs?” He said pointing to the short Vans. “Maybe they still think it’s positive that the conversation is about immigration. I don’t know if that’s the case.”
Despite the abortion hiccups, Trump and Vance are mostly in sync right now. They talk by phone almost every day, though they don’t have a regular scheduled call, said two people familiar with the interaction, who, like those interviewed for this article, were granted anonymity to share details about private conversations. The calls are often random or on demand, when one or the other is interested in something or Trump is happy with a particular TV appearance.
Sometimes, Vance said in an interview on his plane, they talk “several times a day.” He was One of the first people Trump called on Sunday after an apparent assassination attempt. At a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Vance recalled getting the call while sitting at home with his 7-year-old son.
“The president calls me and says, ‘JD, they tried to do it again,'” Vance said. “And he told me the story that was going to be made public a few hours later. And of course my first thought was, “Sir, how are you?” it happened”.
Few complaints or concerns about the Trump-Vance relationship emerged in interviews this week with more than a half-dozen Republicans close to one or both men. Trump, by almost every account, is pleased with Vance’s docile demeanor in Springfield and combativeness on television.
Trump, who spoke with him, praised Vance for staying firm even during confrontational interviews, including one on Sunday. On CNN’s “State of the Union.” hosted several heated exchanges with Dana Bash.
This man is Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake and Rep. “He’s not a hot guy,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in comparison. “In general, self-identified Trumpians are hot-headed people. Your Kari Lakes, your Marjories – these people who feel close to the president and embody his spirit… it’s not entirely accurate because they miss the nuance of Donald Trump’s reluctance to rise unnecessarily. He is very deliberate in escalating problems and JD understands this uniquely.
On the phone, Trump and Vance discuss the issues of the day, people familiar with the calls but spending more time learning what they saw and heard on the trail.
Their conversations aren’t deep dives into politics, meaning Vance sometimes has to improvise to gauge Trump’s positions in interviews.
The day after the debate last week, when podcaster Shawn Ryan When Vance was asked what a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine with Trump would look like, Vance speculated about a demilitarized zone between Ukraine and Russia and a ban on Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Asked about his comments, Trump’s top adviser told NBC News that Vance’s response was not Trump’s “specific proposal” but “concepts that could be part of a comprehensive plan to end the war and stop the killing.” “
“I don’t see the light of day between the two”
Vice presidents and vice presidential candidates sometimes speak outside of school. Then-Vice President Joe Biden declared his support for gay marriagefor example, it came before President Barack Obama was ready to take on the issue and became a sticking point in his 2012 re-election campaign. But the idea that recent events involving Vance show meaningful distance between him and Trump is wrong, those close to them said.
Trump and Vance “share positions on all the major issues that affect America,” said Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes, adding that Trump chose Vance because they share a passion for the America First agenda, which puts American workers ahead of foreign workers, and for American foreign policy. ahead of the rest of the world’s policies.”
Hughes added that it’s not unusual for running mates to differ on issues or try to bridge policy differences, pointing to how Harris and Biden behaved. there were disagreements about fracking.
“I don’t see the light of day between either of them on any issue in America,” Hughes said of Trump and Vance.
Minutes after last week’s debate, Trump and Vance bumped into each other on their way to the spin room where Vance was preparing interviews in advance. According to two people familiar with the details of the discussion, they had a friendly conversation, echoed Trump’s speech and discussed the topics they had talked about, and the abortion ban veto never came up. If Trump had become angry or distrusted Vance, these sources would not have allowed him to continue with interviews that night or book appearances on the following Sunday’s news shows.
One source said, referring to Vance’s appearance on a trio of Sunday news shows last weekend, including his return to Meet the Press, “It wouldn’t be a stretch to go to three.”
As a running mate, Vance is unusually tense and constrained. He follows in the footsteps of Pence, a one-time Trump defender whose refusal to block the 2020 election results has turned him and his supporters against him. The debate wasn’t the first time Trump had loudly marginalized Vance; amid the “childless cat ladies” frenzy, he underestimated the “impact” Vance would have in the race.
Vance also has to contend with the dynamic where no one, including his own running mate, can speak for Trump. When asked by a volunteer in early September about Draft 2025, Trump’s rejected conservative transition plan, Vance suggested the person “remind” voters of that fact.
“Look, trust me,” Vance said. “I know from experience that nobody speaks for Donald Trump except Donald J. Trump, right?”
“Vice President Pence saw his role as an interpreter of President Trump to a traditional Republican audience,” said a Trump ally. “Senator Vance seems to be trying to push America First out of the mainstream. This creates a dynamic that allows Vance to step outside the lines a lot and create throwback moments like last week.
Short, a former Pence aide, said the former vice president was “always very careful not to get ahead of Trump” and that “if he’s going to do any interviews, he’s going to talk to Trump beforehand: That’s what I mean.”
Trump’s “expectations” for No. 2 have changed
Short also believes that the relationship between Vance and Trump is different than the relationship between Pence and Trump before the controversy.
“At first glance, Trump was clearly not in elected office. I think he leaned on Mike for a lot of that initial experience,” Short said. “I think this time he feels he knows Washington. He knows the football players in town. He knows what he wants to do. So I think his expectations of Vance are probably different. It is less helpful in deciding or governing policy. It’s more like being a surrogate. I think Vance does this very effectively. And so I would imagine that for what Trump is looking for, Vance delivers.”
Vance admitted that he doesn’t agree with Trump on everything, but he has a large amount of respect for him. When asked by NBC News in July what role he would like to play in a second Trump administration, Vance replied In addition to expressing a special interest in border and immigration issues, he will “help wherever they ask me to help.”
“He’s the leader of this party and he sets the agenda,” Vance said Wednesday in Raleigh, referring to Trump and any potential differences between them.
Vance’s obedience was not always a given. At 40, he is not the generational peer of septualist Trump. His emergence as a public figure nearly a decade ago is linked to his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which made him a talking head full of anti-Trump sentiments during the 2016 campaign.
Only before his 2022 bid for the Senate in Ohio did Vance become a Trump devotee. His coup was convincing enough for Trump, whose endorsement knocked Vance out of a crowded GOP primary that year. Vance is a unique vice presidential candidate who owes his political career to the presidential candidate who chose him.
And Trump enjoys seeing the same young and articulate Yale Law School grad who was once his harshest critic now defending him on TV.
“He likes to have a smart person with balls who’s not just on Fox,” a person close to the campaign said.
Vance’s intelligence is a particular fixation for Trump. The former president brags about Vance to others, describing himself as a talent evaluator in the mold of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, who picks the best athlete regardless of position and builds a team around him.
“He’s going to tell this story in reference to JD,” said one person who heard Trump speak. “‘Lombardi chose the best athletes for football, and I chose’ – and he would nod – ‘the mental athlete’.”