Donald Trump and his campaign see his running mate, Senator JD Vance, as a way to expand Trump’s voter base, according to sources familiar with the matter, intending to lean into past criticisms from Vance to convince voters who disliked the former president to back him in the election.
In the years before Vance ran for the US Senate, he repeatedly criticized Trump and his presidency in interviews where he made clear he never liked the former president and considered him “cultural heroin” and in private conversations, where he suggested Trump was “America’s Hitler”.
