Following the first day of the Republican National Convention on Monday, July 15, Trump took to social media to announce his choice for Vice President, JD Vance. The Senator from Ohio (since 2023), with less than two years of experience, has a strong anti-LGBTQ+ reputation and has already promised to undo the work of past administrations who have pushed toward equality. 

According to GLAAD, Vance has made a lengthy list of anti-LGBTQ+ statements, such as “strongly disagree[ing]” that queer people should be protected from discrimination. He also introduced a bill to charge healthcare providers with a felony for providing medically necessary health care to trans youth and opposed abortion for any reason, including rape and incest, in addition to objecting to IVF.

The former venture capitalist enters the race with an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda, promising to reverse years of progress made in the United States. The Catholic politician opposes the Equality Act, a congressional bill passed in 2021 that prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, which protects and recognises same-sex marriage at the federal level.

 

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While serving as Senator, Vance proposed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors in Ohio. In a statement after announcing the bill, the candidate said: “Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children.”

Vance also disputes abortion and has previously mentioned his support for a federal ban after 15 weeks; however, he has also said that abortion bans should be left to the discretion of each state. Additionally, the Senator is anti-immigration and has stated that he would like to see further restrictions put in place. 

In 2016, Vance became a New York Times best-selling author for his memoir Hillbilly Elegy. The novel focuses on the socioeconomic problems his family faced in Appalachian Kentucky and his hometown of Middletown, Ohio. Trump’s popularity in the Appalachian Rust Belt, the core of rural, working-class America, sent him to the White House in 2016. 

The addition of JD Vance to the 2024 presidential ticket came as a shock to some. In a 2016 message sent to a former law school roommate, Vance allegedly wrote that Trump is “America’s Hitler.” The outspoken critic of Trump reportedly called himself a “never Trumper,” not voting for him in 2016. 

According to an opinion piece in The Atlantic, the VP pick wrote: “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.”

In 2021, Vance apologised to Trump: “He was a great president, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to make sure he gets a second term.” With Trump’s endorsement, Vance was elected to the US Senate. 

The announcement came less than 48 hours after the assassination attempt of the former president. On Saturday, July 13, at 6:15 pm, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump’s rally in Buttler, Pennsylvania, clipping the candidate’s ear, leaving one rallygoer dead, and two others injured. 

Following the mass shooting, Vance took to X, suggesting that the Biden Campaign’s “rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Today is not just some isolated incident.

The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.

That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) July 14, 2024

Trump took to Instagram to share his walkout before accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president. He emerged from under the stands, his right ear bandaged, to ‘God Bless the USA’, a signature song to be heard at any Trump rally for its patriotic and religious connotations. JD Vance was at the former president’s side. 

Interrupting the song, the announcer spoke of the former president: “We are here tonight for one purpose, and that is, to elect Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States. He is here tonight to show his courage, his defiance against somebody who tried to kill him. You will not take this man down. He has the courage, the strength, and he will be the next president of the United States.”

 

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In 2016 and 2020, former President Trump chose former Indiana Governor Mike Pence. However, Pence was one of the targets of the insurrection and storming of the US capitol on January 6, 2021. Joe Biden has opted to stick with his same running mate from 2020, Vice President Kamala Harris. If elected, Trump would be the second United States president to hold office for two non-consecutive terms.