‘Unfit for office’: 10 times JD Vance criticized Trump before landing VP nod

Donald Trump has a new running mate in the race to become America’s next president: a man who has previously criticized his leadership, calling him “unfit for office” and even describing him as “reprehensible.”

On Monday, Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance is his vice president pick.

Vance, 39, won his Senate seat in 2022 with Trump’s backing. If elected, he would be one of the youngest vice presidents in United States history.

The Republican was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio. He joined the Marines and served in Iraq before earning degrees from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He later worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

Vance also made a name for himself with his memoir, the 2016 bestseller Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, which was published as Trump was first running for president.

Before becoming a Trump ally, Vance sharply criticized the former president in a series of interviews, op-eds, and now-deleted tweets.

But Vance started changing his tune, and in an interview with CNN in 2021, said he regrets his criticism of Trump.

“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance told CNN in 2021. “I regret being wrong about the guy.”

Here is a look at some of Vance’s past critical comments about Trump.

In a 2016 interview with Charlie Rose, Vance remarked that Trump shifted the focus of the white working class from engaged and constructive politics to politics centred around “pointing the finger.”

“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him,” he told Rose when discussing the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

He then went on to tell Rose that he does not like Trump.

“I realize that the media asked me to be this