Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why Trump forgave J.D. Vance

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issue 20 July 2024

Kate Andrews has narrated this article for you to listen to.

It shows a remarkable level of confidence from Donald Trump that he’s chosen for his running-mate the man who once called him ‘America’s Hitler’.

J.D. Vance, the 39-year-old junior senator from Ohio, made the private comment in 2016, as he rose to fame off the back of his autobiography Hillbilly Elegy. The book recounts what it was like to grow up in a deprived rust-belt town, where his family and neighbours had ‘no college degree’ and ‘poverty’s the family tradition’. Vance escaped by joining the US Marine Corps, which included a tour in Iraq. Once home, his degrees from Ohio State University and Yale took him to California, where he worked for the entrepreneur and Republican-backer Peter Thiel, who is reported to have arranged the first meeting between Vance and Trump.

Vance wasn’t just establishing himself as an author.

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