MILWAUKEE — The morning after his monthslong crusade to champion Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) to become Donald Trump’s running mate proved triumphant, Donald Trump Jr. appeared with Axios’s Mike Allen to take a victory lap, but even the former first son admitted his father kept him in the dark until the end.
“I felt it for a while,” Donald Trump Jr. said of his sense that the former president would choose the Ohio senator as his running mate. “I knew for sure when I saw the ‘Truth’ go out. I found out with the rest of the world on social media.”
The younger Trump lobbied the Republican presidential nominee up through the beginning of the Republican National Convention, arguing that Vance’s populist bent and more isolationist leanings demarcate “where our Republican Party is” even if “the Republican Party in D.C.” does not agree. He was clear that his victory in Vance’s promotion over other veepstakes contenders, widely regarded as more “traditional conservatives,” means the party can put “a lot of that nonsense behind us.”
“He lived and epitomizes the American dream,” Donald Trump Jr. said of Vance, who earned his favor for the vice presidential bid because of “his youth, his vigor, [and] his ability to prosecute the case.”
“I think he does better than, frankly, a lot of our stars on friendly television,” Donald Trump Jr. said.
Donald Trump Jr. confirmed the campaign plans to park Vance in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the former president narrowly survived an assassination attempt on Saturday. The site of the shooting, Donald Trump Jr. noted, was right next to a factory where the “blue-collar” Vance’s grandfather once worked.
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Donald Trump Jr. maintained the campaign doesn’t fear the notion of the Democratic Party trying to replace the 81-year-old Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris, admitting that “there’s a component in me that would rather run against” the vice president who “makes Hillary Clinton seem likable.”
“The No. 1 thing I’m tuning in for the rest of the year is J.D. versus Kamala,” he said.
