Former U.S. President Donald Trump has chosen Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate for the White House, after the Republican Party formally nominated him for the top spot again on Monday at the start of the party’s national convention in Milwaukee.
“As Vice President, I know JD will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our troops, and do all I can to Make America Great Again,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
The four-day convention kicked off at the Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee two days after the former U.S. president narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
Trump will formally accept his party’s nomination in a primetime speech on Thursday and will challenge Joe Biden in the presidential election scheduled for November 5, according to Reuters.
Trump’s list of candidates included J.D. Vance, Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio.
Before choosing Vance, Trump met with several top candidates, who had submitted bios and photos to convention organizers, according to the Associated Press.
J.D. Vance, a native of southern Ohio, was a fierce critic of Trump in 2016 but has since become one of his staunchest defenders, according to a Reuters report. He supported Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential polls were tainted by fraud.
According to Reuters, Vance has publicly called the Republican presidential candidate an “idiot” and a “reprehensible character,” and also likened him to Adolf Hitler.
Trump and many of his advisers see Vance’s changes as genuine, even as Republicans and Democrats have called him an opportunist and cast doubt on him.
Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming told Reuters that Vance’s view of the former US president had changed because he had seen the success Trump had brought to the country as president.
Vance’s vocal opposition to U.S. aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia has impressed Trump’s most conservative allies. “He understands Trump’s campaign promises and, unlike the rest of the Republican Party in Washington, he agrees with them,” Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator and vocal Vance supporter, told Reuters.
