Trump names Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as vice presidential running mate

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Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who once called former Donald Trump “America’s Hitler” but is now one of his most vocal supporters in Congress, has been named Trump’s 2024 vice presidential pick.

Ahead of the official nomination of the vice president in Milwaukee on the first day of the Republican convention, Trump posted on Truth Social that we was choosing Vance.

"As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," Trump said in a two-part post.

Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio and served in the Marine Corps for four years after graduating high school in 2003. He graduated from The Ohio State University and Yale Law School before becoming an investment banker in California. He rose to national prominence in 2016 with his widely read — and widely criticized — memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which detailed his white working-class upbringing and the hollowed-out Rust Belt beset by addiction, poverty and despair.

In a 2016 interview with NPR, Vance said he was leaving the Bay Area to return to Ohio and do nonprofit work to target opioid addiction that was prevalent in his community growing up. “It's obviously very personally important to me and it's something my family has struggled with and dealt with,” he said on NPR’s All Things Considered. “And I felt, you know, frankly a little bit of responsibility now that I've been given this platform by the success of the book to go and try to do at least a little something to help out.”

Vance used his platform to start Our Ohio Renewal, a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that