JD Vance Faces Scrutiny Over Past Criticisms of Trump and Car Seats

As Senator JD Vance of Ohio prepares for the vice-presidential debate next week, several past statements — including a private message in which he reportedly criticized former President Donald J. Trump near the end of his term and a video of him linking car-seat regulations to low birthrates — came back to haunt him on Friday.

Long before he became Mr. Trump’s running mate, Mr. Vance had a well-known history of criticizing Mr. Trump, who he once said he feared could be “America’s Hitler.” But Mr. Vance later became a supporter and ally of Mr. Trump’s, attributing his change of heart to his appreciation of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

The senator’s explanation came under scrutiny on Friday after The Washington Post reported that he had said in a private message on social media in February 2020 that Mr. Trump had “thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism.”

Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, said in a statement that it was “hard to conceive of a more scathing and definitive rejection” of Mr. Trump.

The Trump campaign responded to the messages reported by The Post by noting that Mr. Vance had voted for Mr. Trump for re-election in 2020. The campaign did not dispute the accuracy or the existence of the messages, attributing them to an exchange with a consultant. (The Post did not identify the recipient.)

William Martin, a spokesman for Mr. Vance, said in a statement that “it’s no secret” that Mr. Vance had been a “critic of President Trump in the past.” He said that Mr. Vance’s criticism was not directed at Mr. Trump, but at “establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trump’s populist economic agenda.”