Ex-Trump Aide Says JD Vance Achieved 1 Thing For Sure With His Debate Performance

Former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said JD Vance’s vice presidential debate performance on Tuesday likely secured his spot as the “MAGA heir apparent.”

Griffin, now a political commentator, predicted that Vance’s showing against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) likely won’t make a difference in terms of next month’s election. But she suggested it will fly well among supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“I was struck by the fact that JD Vance is a significantly more eloquent Donald Trump,” Griffin said on CNN’s post-debate analysis. “Watching that, I don’t agree with JD Vance on quite a bit, but he speaks to MAGA in a way that he comes off as an incredibly effective communicator.”

“JD Vance is a chameleon,” she added of the Republican, a U.S. senator from Ohio. “There’s multiple sides to him. It’s one of his greatest political strengths.”

Griffin acknowledge that Vance said “some untrue things,” but he “tried to show the side of empathy with him that I found myself believing it.”

However, she continued: “Then I remember his lies about Haitian kids, his comments about childless cat ladies, and his general record online is a mean-spirited internet troll.”

“So long and short: I don’t know that this moves the needle,” Griffin said. “But I do think it solidifies his place as the MAGA heir apparent after Trump.”

Post-debate polls show that viewers saw no clear winner in the event, though Vance had a very narrow edge over Walz.

Griffin resigned from her White House post in December 2020. After the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to prevent the certification of the 2020 election, she became an outspoken critic of the former president.