JD Vance’s mom details the moment her son changed his mind on Trump and became his biggest backer

JD Vance’s mother explained the moment her son changed his heart from an ardent critic of former President Donald Trump to a vociferous supporter and running mate.

Beverly Aikins told The New York Timesthat she’s “probably not the best person to answer” how her son went from a critic to Trump’s running mate.

“But I do think that JD saw, when he was in office, that things for people in our area got better. I think that’s why he changed his mind,” she added.

Aikins told The Times that she doesn’t worry about the fate of Trump’s last running mate and vice president, Mike Pence, who was the subject of chants to hang him when he refused to do the then-president’s bidding on January 6, to overturn the 2020 election results.

“I think that JD is probably the smartest, most amazing young man, and everything he touches turns to gold,” she told the paper.

“JD will be president one day. You know how I know that?” she asked.

“He used to watch all these political shows” as a child. “I would say, ‘Why do you watch that?’ He would say, ‘Mom, this is about our country. I need information.’ I would just think, ‘What a nerd.’”

Aikins’s parents were Democrats – her own mother liked former President Bill Clinton – but nowadays Aikins is a registered Republican,

“I don’t vote the party. I vote the person,” she told the paper and said she voted for Trump in 2016. “Nobody can buy him.”

She alos revealed how she met the former president for the first time during this year’s Republican National Convention: “He was just very humble and very nice to me, and told me I had a great kid.”

Aikins told the paper about the first time Vance told her about the book he wrote that would go on to become a bestseller and a film – Hillbilly Elegy. The book