# J.D. Vance

James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, and venture capitalist. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected Vice President of the United States in the 2024 election. Previously he served as the junior United States senator from Ohio from 2023 to 2025.

## Quotes
### 2012

* A significant part of Republican immigration policy centers on the possibility of deporting 12 million people (or ‘self-deporting’ them). Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens. The notion fails to pass the laugh test. The same can be said for too much of the party’s platform.
** Blog post written in 2012, deleted in 2016, quoted in "JD Vance got a former professor to delete a blog post Vance wrote in 2012 attacking GOP over anti-immigrant rhetoric" CNN (September 17, 2024)
* Republicans lose minority voters for simple and obvious reasons: their policy proposals are tired, unoriginal, or openly hostile to non-whites.
** Blog post written in 2012, deleted in 2016, stored in Internet Archive: "A blueprint for the GOP" (November 15, 2012)

### 2014

* I hate the police.
* Given the number of negative experiences I've had in the past few years, I can't imagine what a Black guy goes through.
** Written in 2014 in an e-mail to his then close friend Sofia Nelson, identifying as transgender, quoted in "JD Vance's 'I Hate the Police' Remark Raises Eyebrows", Newsweek (July 27, 2024)

### 2016

* I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler. How's that for discouraging?
** From a screenshot (February 2016), as cited in "Vance wondered whether Trump was 'America’s Hitler,' says former roommate sharing screenshot", Ohio Capital Journal (April 19, 2022)
* Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.
* Anger about the wars isn't the only reason voters support Mr. Trump. But his willingness to say what other G.O.P. candidates won't reflects what people like most about him: his complete break with the party elite. Because the last time Republican voters put a member of that elite in the White House, he sent their children on a bloody misadventure.
** "Why Trump’s Antiwar Message Resonates with White America", The New York Times (April 4, 2016)
* What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing offshoring companies into submission. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing. It doesn’t matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t. Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein. The great tragedy is that many of the problems Trump identifies are real, and so many of the hurts he exploits demand serious thought and measured action—from governments, yes, but also from community leaders and individuals. Yet so long as people rely on that quick high, so long as wolves point their fingers at everyone but themselves, the nation delays a necessary reckoning. There is no self-reflection in the midst of a false euphoria. Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it. I’m not sure when or how that realization arrives: maybe in a few months, when Trump loses the election; maybe in a few years, when his supporters realize that even with a President Trump, their homes and families are still domestic war zones, their newspapers’ obituaries continue to fill with the names of people who died too soon, and their faith in the American Dream continues to falter. But it will come, and when it does, I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other. And then, perhaps the nation will trade the quick high of “Make America Great Again” for real medicine.
** "Opioid of the Masses", The Atlantic (July 4, 2016)
* “Humans appear to have some need to look down on someone; there’s just a basic tribalistic impulse in all of us,” Vance recently told The American Conservative. “And if you’re an elite white professional, working-class whites are an easy target: You don’t have to feel guilty for being a racist or a xenophobe. By looking down on the hillbilly, you can get that high of self-righteousness and superiority without violating any of the moral norms of your own tribe.”
** according to Why ‘white trash’ Americans are flocking to Donald Trump (2016/07/30/)
* I think there's a chance, if I feel like Trump has a really good chance of winning, that I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton.
* I think that I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump. I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place. And ultimately I just don't share Hillary Clinton's politics.
** "'Hillbilly Elegy' Recalls A Childhood Where Poverty Was 'The Family Tradition'", NPR (August 17, 2016)
* Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.
** Tweet (October 2016), as cited in "Senate hopeful J.D. Vance apologizes for criticizing Trump as 'reprehensible' in deleted tweets", CNN (July 6, 2021)
* Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.
** Tweet (October 2016), as cited in "Senate hopeful J.D. Vance apologizes for criticizing Trump as 'reprehensible' in deleted tweets", CNN (July 6, 2021)
** Following The Washington Post account of the Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape on October 7, 2016
* [On NPR, August 2016] I can't stomach Trump
* [Interviewed by Charlie Rose, October 2016] I'm a Never-Trump guy. I never liked him.
** As cited by Amy B. Wang and Meryl Kornfield in "J.D. Vance’s journey from a 'Never Trump' guy to Trump’s VP pick", The Washington Post (July 15, 2024)
* I think this election is really having a negative effect especially on the white working class. What it’s doing is giving people an excuse to point the finger at someone else, point the finger at Mexican immigrants, or Chinese trade or the Democratic elites or whatever else.
** Said in an interview in October 2016, cited in "JD Vance was once 'never Trump'. Now he's his running mate", BBC (July 16, 2024)
* My God what an idiot.
** About Donald Trump, in a tweet in October 2016, cited in "‘My god what an idiot’: J.D. Vance gets whacked for past Trump comments", Politico (October 23, 2021)
* Trump's biggest failure as a political leader is that he sees the worst in people and he encourages the worst in people.
** Interview: "J.D. Vance on Why Life Might Get Worse for the White Working Class", Time (November 3, 2016)
* My fear with Trump was always that he didn't have great solutions.
** "The Daily 202: Why the author of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ is moving home to Ohio", The Washington Post (December 21, 2016)

#### Interview, Slate (August 25, 2016)

    "Compassion, and Criticism, for the White Working Class", Slate (August 25, 2016)
* Donald Trump is frankly dangerous.
* My view is both that Trump is tapping into some racially ugly attitudes, but also that he is leading people to racially ugly attitudes.
* When people read Breitbart every single day and convince themselves that Barack Obama is a foreign terrorist, that is not a problem of government. That is a problem of community failure, and we have to recognize that.
* I don’t think that 60-70 percent of working-class white voters would have supported a Muslim ban before Donald Trump said something about a Muslim ban. I think that all you have to do is go back to the most recent Republican president and the way that George W. Bush encouraged us to think openly and supportively about our Muslim citizens. There is an element here where I think it’s not just that Trump is exploiting something but he’s also leading the white working class to a very dark place.

### 2017

* At a pivotal time in my life, Barack Obama gave me hope that a boy who grew up like me could still achieve the most important of my dreams. For that, I'll miss him, and the example he set.
** Opinion: "Barack Obama and Me", The New York Times (January 2, 2017)
* In 4 years, I hope people remember that it was those of us who empathized with Trump's voters who fought him the most aggressively.
** Tweet (March 2017), as cited in "Senate hopeful J.D. Vance apologizes for criticizing Trump as 'reprehensible' in deleted tweets", CNN (July 6, 2021)

### 2018

* I quickly realized that Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.
** "Trump speaks for those Bush betrayed", USA Today (February 16, 2018)

### 2020

* Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy)
** Tweeted in February 2020, quoted in "JD Vance said Trump ‘thoroughly failed to deliver’ his economic agenda in uncovered 2020 messages", Independent (September 27, 2024)

### 2021

* And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.
** On Fox News (July 5, 2021), as cited in "Senate hopeful J.D. Vance apologizes for criticizing Trump as 'reprehensible' in deleted tweets", CNN (July 6, 2021)
* I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people, and when the courts - because you will get taken to court - and then when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: the Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.
** On Jack Murphy Live (September 17, 2021) as cited in "Republican J.D. Vance Confronted on Wanting to Fire 'Every Civil Servant'" Newsweek (February 5, 2024)

### 2022

* I think if any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.
** From his speech "The professors are the enemy", quoted in "JD Vance paid $70K by colleges he bashes as Senate candidate", AP News (April 21, 2022)
* We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it's just a basic fact. If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it? If we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, we should support people who actually have kids, because those are the people who actually have a direct stake in the future of the country.
** From the interview by Tucker Carlson on Fox News at JD Vance: The US is being run by 'childless cat ladies' (July 29, 2021), as cited in "AOC hits back at JD Vance after he calls her and Pete Buttigieg 'childless cat ladies'’ who shouldn’t govern because they don’t have kids", The Independent (July 30, 2021), and as cited in Grace Panetta "JD Vance, Trump’s VP Pick, Has Opposed Abortion and LGBTQ+ Rights", Ms (July 15, 2024), reprinted from The 19th, and as cited in Why JD Vance’s 2021 comments calling Kamala Harris a ‘childless cat lady’ are going viral, the NBC Today show (July 23, 2024)
** Vice President Kamala Harris has two step-children with her husband Doug Emhoff.
* Did you see me on FOX Primetime recently? I needed to speak DIRECTLY to patriots like you about the serious issue of radical childless leaders in this country. [...] We can’t have people who don't have a direct stake in this country making our most important decisions. We've allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths - they're invested in NOTHING because they're not invested in this country's children. Fighting back won't be easy - our childless opponents have a lot of free time. That's why I need YOU to stand with me.
** From a fundraising email (August 2021) for his Senate run, as cited in "It's not just 'cat ladies': JD Vance has a history of disparaging people without kids", CNN (July 30, 2024)
* I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society. That's a crazy conspiracy theory to a lot of very well-educated people in this country right now.
** From a speech Vance gave at the Teneo Network conference. As cited by Kroll, Andy (June 16, 2024). "In Private Speech, J.D. Vance Said the 'Devil Is Real' and Praised Alex Jones as a Truth-Teller". ProPublica.
* [On his opposition to abortion in cases involving incest or rape] It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it's whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.
* The question to me is really about the baby [...] We want women to have opportunities, we want women to have choices, but, above all, we want women and young boys in the womb to have a right to life.
** In an interview on Spectrum News (Columbus, Ohio; September 22, 2021), as cited in "Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance argues against need for rape and incest exceptions in abortion laws", The Washington Post (September 24, 2021)
* This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, "well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term."
* And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I'm skeptical. But it really didn't work out for the kids of those marriages. [...] And that's what I think all of us should be honest about, is we've run this experiment in real time. And what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that's making our kids unhappy.
** Speaking at Pacifica Christian High School, California (September 2021), as cited in "JD Vance Suggests People in ‘Violent’ Marriages Shouldn’t Get Divorced", Vice (July 25, 2022)
* There's something comparable between abortion and slavery [...] and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society.
** On the Catholic Currents podcast (October 20, 2021), as cited in "Black state lawmakers take aim at Vance over comments likening abortion to slavery", Ohio Capital Journal (July 28, 2022)
** The date of the podcast is taken from the linked source.
* So much of what we want to accomplish, so much of what we want to do in this movement, in this country, I think are fundamentally dependent on going through a set of very hostile institutions, specifically the universities, which control the knowledge in our society, which control what we call truth and what we call falsity, that provides research that gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in our country.
* I think if any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.
* The universities in our country are fundamentally corrupt and dedicated to deceit and lies, not to the truth.
* The simple fact is that our universities tell the powerful what they want to hear, and they couch it in ridiculous political rhetoric instead of dealing with the real consequences of progressive policy.
* Progressive politics, it’s not about uplifting minorities, it’s not about healing our planet, it’s not about looking after the poor. Progressive politics is a language, a language used by our new oligarchy to do two things: On the one hand to rob the American people blind, and on the second hand to tell them to shut the hell up about it if they dare complain. That is the purpose of American progressive politics.
* We are giving our children over to our enemies and it’s time we stop doing it.
* We have got to get out of the mindset that the only way to live a good life in this country, the only way for our children to succeed, is to go to a four-year university, where people will learn to hate their country and acquire a lot of debt in the process.
* The professors are the enemy.
** Speech November 2, 2021: "J.D. Vance | The Universities are the Enemy | National Conservatism Conference II", National Conservatism (November 10, 2021)
* I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.
** On Steve Bannon's War Room podcast (February 19, 2022), as cited in "GOP Senate candidate JD Vance said he doesn't 'really care what happens to Ukraine'", Business Insider (February 21, 2022)
* We didn't not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn't believe in transgender rights [...] Which is what the U.S. State Department is saying is a major problem with Russia.
** On Steve Bannon's War Room podcast (February 19, 2022), as cited in "Says Joe Biden risks war with Russia because Vladimir Putin doesn't 'believe in transgender rights'", Politifact (February 21, 2022)
* If your worldview tells you that it's bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you've been had.
** Tweet (June 26, 2022), as cited in "From Yale to Newsmax, Usha Vance Has Helped J.D. Vance Chart His Path", The New York Times (November 1, 2022)
** The Supreme Court had ended Roe v. Wade two days earlier.

### 2023

* We have built a foreign policy of hectoring and moralizing and lecturing countries that don't want anything to do with this. The Chinese have a foreign policy of building roads and bridges and feeding poor people, and I think that we should pursue a foreign policy, a diplomacy, of respect and a foreign policy that is not rooted in moralizing; it is rooted in the national interests of this country.
** FIRE GRANTS AND SAFETY ACT--Continued (April 19, 2023)

### 2024

* The United States has provided a blanket of security to Europe for far too long.
* The question each European nation needs to ask itself is this: are you prepared to defend yourself? And the question the US must ask is: if our European allies can't even defend themselves, are they allies, or clients?
* In the US, justifications for the war often depend on a contemporary domino theory: unless we stop Putin in Ukraine, he won't stop there. But the time has come for Europe to stand on its own feet. That doesn't mean it has to stand alone, but it must not continue to use America as a crutch.
** "Europe must stand on its own two feet on defence", Financial Times (February 19, 2024)
** The Domino theory during the Cold War postulated that if one country came under the influence of Communism, its neighbors would follow. It was used as an argument in favor of American intervention.
* I have to beat up on the UK – just one additional thing. I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn't care about it. And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it's Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it's actually the UK, since Labour just took over.
** At the National Conservative Conference in Washington DC (July 11, 2024), as cited in Jessica Elgot "Trump’s running mate says UK could be ‘first Islamist country’ with nuclear weapons", The Guardian (July 16, 2024).
** The 2024 United Kingdom general election was held on 4 July 2024 resulting in the Labour Party gaining a parliamentary majority.
* [On attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East from forces connected to Iran] They have attacked, certain militia groups have attacked and I think we've done the right thing, a proportionate response. If they hit us, we have to hit them back but if you're talking about an attack on the Iranian mainland, that would be a significant escalation right now that would be a mistake.
** On Face the Nation (CBS, October 29, 2023) "JD Vance says he would not support authorizing military action in Iran", The Hill (October 29, 2023)
* There are just these basic cadences of life that I think are really powerful and really valuable when you have kids in your life. And the fact that so many people, especially in America’s leadership class, just don’t have that in their lives. You know, I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less, less mentally stable. And of course, you talk about going on Twitter — final point I’ll make is, you go on Twitter and almost always the people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don’t have kids at home.
** "Vance: 'Childless people' in US leadership 'more sociopathic'", The Hill (July 30, 2024)
* Democrats say that it is racist to believe, well, they say it’s racist to do anything.
** "J.D. Vance Toasts With Diet Mountain Dew After ‘Racist’ Joke Falls Flat", Yahoo News (August 2, 2024)
* I think Donald Trump didn't serve in the military, but he didn't lie about it.
* Donald Trump didn't lie about serving in the military. He didn't say that he went to Vietnam when he didn't. This is the problem. I don't criticize anybody. Whether they served in our country or not.
** "JD Vance Confronted on Donald Trump Avoiding Service in Vietnam War", Newsweek (August 11, 2024)
* Average new car costs nearly $50,000 a year.
** "Watch: Idiot J.D. Vance’s Speech Derails With Embarrassing Flubs", New Republic (August 14, 2024)
* She’s not doing a very good job.
** Claimed about Tom Vilsack, Agriculture Secretary, quoted in "Watch: Idiot J.D. Vance’s Speech Derails With Embarrassing Flubs", New Republic (August 14, 2024)
* We can't worry about polls.
* I'm telling you, every single person who’s watching this, the Trump campaign is in a very, very good spot.
** "JD Vance Compares Kamala Harris to Jeffrey Epstein in Fox News Interview", The Daily Beast (August 18, 2024)
* Consistently what you’ve seen in 2016 and 2020, is that the media uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict within Republican voters.
** Claimed when commenting polls presented by Fox News, quoted in "JD Vance thinks polls showing surge of Harris support are "fake"", Salon (August 18, 2024)
* I just don’t understand a person in American politics in 2024 who’s whining about what happened to them instead of using their leadership and using their influence to make the lives of American citizens better.
** "Critics Think JD Vance's DNC Response Applies Perfectly To Trump", Huffington Post (August 22, 2024)
* Donald Trump can point to four years of successful leadership and say "I delivered rising prices".
** "Some of the witless things JD Vance said yesterday", Boing Boing (August 22, 2024)
* Sounds like we got some fans and some haters.
** "Sounds like we got some fans & some haters": Vance is booed before speaking in front of firefighters union in Boston.", The Count(August 29, 2024)
* President Trump and I are proud to be the most pro-worker Republican ticket in history.
** "JD Vance Booed During Speech to Firefighters", Newsweek (August 29, 2024)
* While it’s tempting, and I’m sure it would make some big headlines, don’t worry any-ev-everybody I’m not going to try to take off my shirt here.
** "J.D. Vance Booed by Entire Crowd During Dumpster Fire Speech", New Republic (August 29, 2024)
* They couldn't beat him at the ballot box, so they tried to bankrupt him. They failed at that, so they tried to impeach him. They failed at that. So they tried to put him in prison, and they even tried to kill him.
** "They tried to kill him' is now the bogus claim Vance uses to introduce Trump" / "One person tried to kill Trump ‒ and he wasn't a Democrat", USA Today (August 29, 2024)
* I’ve said a lot of stupid things on camera, sometimes when you’re in the public eye you make mistakes and again. I think the best way to deal with it is to laugh at ourselves, laugh at this stuff and try to have some fun in politics.
** "Vance Bizarrely Compares Harris's CNN Interview To Flubbed Answer by Teen Beauty Queen 17 Years Ago", Inkl (August 30, 2024)
* Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.
** "Vance pushes false accusations of Haitians eating pets", The Hill (September 9, 2024)
* I don't think most Americans, whether they like her music, are fans of her or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from their interests and the problems of most Americans.
** Claimed about Taylor Swift after she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential Election, quoted in "JD Vance's Response to Taylor Swift Endorsing Kamala Harris Backfires", Newsweek (September 13, 2024)
* The American media totally ignored this stuff, until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.
** Said about his claims about Haitians supposedly eating cats, dogs and ducks in Springfield, Ohia, quoted in "‘A piece of garbage’: Republican Ohio Gov. condemns Trump-Vance false immigrant pet-eating conspiracy", CNBC (September 15, 2024)
* Eggs, when Kamala Harris took office, were short of $1.50 a dozen. Now a dozen eggs will cost you around $4.
** "JD Vance mocked for another botched photo opp — as he blames Harris for eggs costing $4 while standing in front of a $2.99 display2, Independent (September 24, 2024)
* The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check. And since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.
** October 1, 2024, addressing debate moderators (Grynbaum, Michael M. (October 1, 2024). "CBS Sought the Middle Ground on Fact-Checking. Vance Jumped Into the Gap.". The New York Times. Seitz-Wald, Alex (October 1, 2024). "JD Vance's mic gets cut while talking about Springfield at VP debate". w:NBC News. )
* In two days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C., and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris.
** "Election 2024 live updates: Trump, Harris await Election Day results; new polls", USA Today (November 4, 2024)

### 2025

* I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life. We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.
** Cited in Bobby Allyn; Shannon Bond. "Member of Elon Musk's DOGE team resigns after racist posts resurface". National Public Radio. Dan Mangan; Kevin Breuninger. "Staffer at Musk’s DOGE resigns after racist social media posts exposed". CNBC.
* Even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential – and trust me, I say this with all humour – if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg's scolding you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.
** Speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany (February 14, 2025), as cited in "Read: JD Vance’s full speech on the fall of Europe", The Spectator (London, February 14, 2025) (Archive save)

## Quotes about JD Vance

* We’ve endorsed J.P. — right? J.D. Mandel, and he’s doing great.
** Donald Trump, referring to JD Vance in May 2022 at a rally in Nebraska, cited in "J.D. Vance Was Not Always His Name. But It’s the One That Felt Closest to Home.", the New York Times (July 15, 2024)
* J.D. is kissing my ass. He wants my support so bad.
** "Donald Trump humiliated J.D. Vance for fun", CNN (September 19, 2022)
* We're going to defeat Donald Trump, the career criminal and incorrigible recidivist con man and his pet chameleon. JD Vance.
** Jamie Raskin, U.S. representative for Maryland, at the 2024 Democratic National Convention
* Historically, the choice of the vice president makes no difference. You're voting for the president. And you can have a vice president who's outstanding in every way—and I think JD is, I think that all of them would have been—but you're not voting that way, you're voting for the president.
** Donald Trump, quoted in "Donald Trump Says JD Vance Has 'Virtually No Impact' on Election", Newsweek (July 31, 2024)
* Not me. They’re talking about J.D.
** Donald Trump, after he and JD Vance had been called "weird", quoted in "J.D. Vance Likes That Trump ‘Will Talk to Anybody,’ Including Nazi-Loving Nick Fuentes", (August 11, 2024)
* JD Vance, do you understand why there was a sudden job opening for running mate on the GOP ticket? They tried to kill your predecessor. They tried to kill him because he would not follow Trump’s plan to destroy and nullify the votes of millions of Americans.
** Jamie Raskin, U.S. representative for Maryland, quoted in "Raskin to Vance: ‘They tried to kill your predecessor’", The Hill (August 20, 2024)
* This is a piece of garbage that is simply not true. There’s no evidence of this at all. Discussion about Haitians eating dogs is just not helpful. And, again, these people are here legally. They’re here legally, and they want to work, and they are, in fact, working.
** Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio, quoted in "‘A piece of garbage’: Republican Ohio Gov. condemns Trump-Vance false immigrant pet-eating conspiracy", CNBC (September 15, 2024)
* In the wake of JD Vance admitting he 'created' the pet-eating story, and as a result of the very real threats the communities and people he has targeted are now under... I am calling on him to RESIGN as our Senator.
** Senator for Ohio Casey Weinstein, quoted in "Ohio Congressman Calls on JD Vance To Resign As Senator", Newsweek (September 16, 2024)
* Here's our state's junior Senator bragging about terrorizing Ohioans with malicious lies in order to change the subject in the national election he's losing.
** Ohio representative Michele Grim, quoted in "Ohio Congressman Calls on JD Vance To Resign As Senator", Newsweek (September 16, 2024)
* Far from just repeating claims he’s heard, Vance has actually helped create much of the chaos he’s now trying to exploit.
* This pet-eating panic was built on nothing. It turns out not long after his first post about Haitians eating pets, his campaign actually called the Springfield city manager, who remembers Vance’s staff asked point-blank: ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’ and he said: ‘I told him no.’
* So Vance knew it was a lie this whole time. But instead of just admitting that. he and his campaign have been scrambling to dig up new bulls--t evidence — all of which either bears no resemblance to the claims he’s made, or falls apart at the slightest scrutiny.
* It turns out he’s pretty good at parroting racist lies like the spineless dips--t that he is.
** John Oliver, TV host, quoted in "John Oliver Hammers JD Vance for Pushing ‘Pet-Eating Panic’ He Knew Was Fake", The Daily Beast (September 23, 2024)
* Vance seems to assume that large numbers of native-born white people don’t constitute ethnic enclaves, and that communities of immigrants somehow do (and he’s clearly uninterested in understanding the forces, positive and negative, that often make newcomers cluster). MAGA has been a largely white movement of non-urban people who seem to think, like Trump himself, that people unlike them are scary and that there is only safety in homogeneity. So if you bend it around and maybe turn it inside out, there’s some “she made him do it” logic to Vance’s declaration “What happens when you have massive amounts of illegal immigration? It actually starts to create ethnic conflict. It creates higher crime rates.” It’s just that the conflict and crime doesn’t come from the immigrants.
** Rebecca Solnit "JD Vance is Just Another Know Nothing Nativist" (August 23, 2024)