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JD Vance says that when Donald Trump called him to offer him the position of his running mate, the former president spoke to his 7-year-old son, and that it was a moment he would “never forget.”
The Ohio senator – who was announced as Trump’s pick for vice president on Monday – said that even being considered for the role had been “an honor.”
The announcement was made by Trump on his social media platform Truth Social, shortly before he was confirmed as the GOP nominee at the Republican National Convention, which is underway in Wisconsin.
In his first interview since being named as Trump’s running mate, the 39-year-old former Marine described the “crazy” moment Trump called.
“When the President called me today to actually formally offer me to become the vice presidential nominee, which sounds crazy, my 7-year-old son was sort of making noise in the background,” he told Fox News pundit Sean Hannity on Monday night.
He continued: “I’m getting so embarrassed. It’s like, ‘oh my God, Donald Trump’s asking me to be his vice president’ – this is the call, or maybe not the call, or maybe it’s a bad call, right? It’s the call. Who knows whether it’s good or bad.
“But then he actually has me put my 7-year-old son on the phone. You think about this, everything that’s happened. The guy just got shot at a couple of days ago, and he takes the time to talk to my 7-year-old.
“It’s a moment I’ll never forget.” Vance said. He added that Trump had told him he was going to “save the country” and that he was “the guy who could help him win.”
Vance was known for, at one time, being staunchly anti-Trump, having reportedly called him a “cynical a-hole” and even “America’s Hitler” in 2016. When quizzed directly on his remarks, Vance said he had been mistaken about Trump.
“I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016,” he said. “But President Trump was a great president, and he changed my mind. I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans, because again, he delivered that peace and prosperity.
“If you go back to what I thought in 2016… I bought into the media’s lies and distortions. I bought into this idea that somehow he was going to be so different – a terrible threat to democracy – it was a joke.”
“I said some bad things about Donald Trump ten years ago, but I think it’s actually important to be able again to admit that you’re wrong.”
This isn’t the first time the Ohio lawmaker has recanted his “never-Trump” attitude. In 2021 he asked people “not to judge me” on his previous remarks which he “regretted.”
Vance also spokeshocking attempt on the former president’s life, just two days earlier at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Vance said he had been “playing mini-golf” with his children when he had heard the news.
“It was scary,” he told Hannity.
“Of course, I didn’t know what his condition was. My first reaction was just to pray for him. I was terrified if President Trump had been killed… the reverberations in the country, it would have been a world historic tragedy. Thank God he was okay.”
Like others in the Republican party, Vance voiced his concerns about how the shooter – named as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks – was able to get in a position to attack the former president.
“What worries me is, Why was there a shooter 150 yards from the president of the United States? It doesn’t make an ounce of sense, but we need to understand why,” he said.
Vance, somewhat unsurprisingly, echoed Trump’s rhetoric on the issues including the Southern Border, abortion and trans rights. He also hit out at the Democratic party for “lying” about President Joe Biden’s mental capacity.
Asked about Biden’s refusal to step down from the ticket despite continuing criticism, he told Hannity: “The Democrats want to try to run from this, and they’re saying that Joe Biden has to step down... Joe Biden for President.
“That’s not public spiritedness. That’s political cynicism, because they should have been saying it three years ago. Kamala Harris has allowed America to be saddled with a president who clearly doesn’t have the mental capacity to do the job.
“It is not public spiritedness to call for him to step down when he’s about to lose an election. They should have been doing it years ago… And it’s not just Kamala Harris, it’s Nancy Pelosi. The entire Democratic apparatus lied about this guy.”
Concluding the interview, Vance said he was “grounded” and was glad to have been able to spend time with his family, despite a hectic day.
“Things are crazy, and things are way different, but I’m still a husband and a dad. First, and that’s going to make me a very happy guy over the next four months,” he said.
