Rachel Maddow described Sen. J.D. Vance’s history of comments about Donald Trump as “rich” now that he’s been selected as the former president’s running mate.
The MSNBC host listed off points on the Ohio Republican’s résumé, noting that the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and former venture capitalist had never held any public office prior to his 18 months serving in the U.S. Senate.
“As a running mate for Donald Trump, it is unavoidable to note that his record of remarks about Trump is one that I think could … reasonably be described as ‘rich,’” Maddow said.
Vance, a former Marine and Yale Law School graduate, criticized Trump harshly prior to the 2016 election. He called Trump “reprehensible,” an “idiot,” and a fraud, characterizing himself as a “never Trump guy.”
“I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place,” he said in an August 2016 interview.
In a private 2016 message exchange made public by his former Yale roommate, Vance suggested Trump could be “America’s Hitler.”
“J.D. Vance is a very good writer. He wrote in a very good New York Times op-ed that ‘Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office,’” Maddow noted.
Eight years later, Vance has well and truly completed his 180.
Just days ago, after the assassination attempt on Trump, he claimed that the Biden campaign’s rhetoric about Trump’s authoritarianism had “led directly” to the attack, ignoring calls to lower the political temperature after the shooting. Authorities have not yet shared the shooter’s motive or any information that suggests that was the case.
“Vance says he has changed, that he no longer thinks all those terrible things that he has said about Trump in the past. And you know, maybe that’s true. Who among us knows what is in the man’s heart,” Maddow said.
“But in J.D. Vance’s public positions now, there’s nothing, literally nothing, about Trump that Vance is not endorsing and indeed advancing.”
Watch Maddow’s commentary below.