EXCLUSIVE'He's one handsome son of a b*tch': How MAGA favorite JD Vance caught Trump's eye as he weighs his pick for VP
- The Ohio senator is on a shortlist of three for Trump's vice president selection
- He has lost weight since taking up running during his 2022 Senate campaign
If looks are the key to Donald Trump's vice presidential pick then there is only one winner.
J.D. Vance's blue eyes and thick beard first caught the attention of the former president two years ago, when the author and former Marine was competing for the Republican nomination in Ohio's Senate race.
'He's one handsome son of a bitch,' Trump told his inner circle.
Since then Vance has emerged as one of his most formidable promoters on cable news channels.
And a strict running regimen instituted during his run for Senate has seen the possible veep lose weight recently, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by Trump himself, according to a source familiar with the former president's conversations.
Former President Donald Trump campaigning with Sen. J.D. Vance in Vandalia, Ohio, in March. Trump has apparently taken note of a slimmed down Vance saying that 'he's got the look'
'He's got the look,' is another Trump assessment, noting the slimmed down figure and choice of well-fitting suits.
It leaves the Ohio senator as one of three candidates—along with Sen. Marco Rubio, 53, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, 67—on a shortlist for vice president.
Supporters, who include the likes of Donald Trump Jr. and former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, say he brings a deep connection with the rust belt states that could decide the election, a personal history that embodies the American Dream, and the sort of TV skills essential for the president's number-one advocate.
Critics accuse him of being a political chameleon, selling out his Never Trump credentials at the first sniff of power.
Either way it marks an extraordinary rise for a 39-year-old brought up in the crushing poverty of southern Ohio by his heroin-addicted mother and his fierce grandmother.
His 2016 memoir, 'Hillbilly Elegy,' catapulted him to literary and political fame, establishing him as the sort of working class, white author who could decode Trump and his allure for an uncomprehending liberal and conservative establishment.
The book painted an evocative portrait of a forgotten American while still warning that Trump himself was like an opioid, an 'easy escape from the pain.'
As opponents have gleefully pointed out, he repeatedly criticized Trump as he promoted his first book, describing himself as a 'Never Trump guy' and explaining why the New York property developer and TV star was 'unfit for our nation's highest office' in a New York Times piece.
Vance has become close to Donald Trump Jr. who is seen here campaigning with him in 2022
Insiders say Vance is on a three-strong shortlist, completed by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida (left) and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota (right)
By then Vance had already had two careers. He spent four years in the Marines, serving as a public affairs officer in Iraq, before studying political science and philosophy at Ohio State University.
After graduating from Yale Law School in 2013, he joined Mithril Capital, a venture capital firm in California owned by Silicon Valley billionaire and donor Peter Thiel, who later helped fund his pivot into politics.
'Hillbilly Elegy' was published in 2016
That background, combining an Ivy League law school with a well-received memoir, triggers comparisons with another former president.
Vance himself leaned into the comparison in a 2016 New York Times column entitled: 'Barack Obama and Me.' He lamented the way the Republican Party was unable to disconnect its political disagreements from 'an admirable man,' even as he described how he would 'breathe a sigh of relief at Mr. Obama's departure.'
And there he might have stayed, writing for high-minded newspapers on politics and people, appearing on TV to talk Trump and the Mid West, while making a fortune with his own venture capital firm.
It was the backlash to Trump in office that changed all that, according to people who knew him before he got into politics.
A friend from Yale Law School, who bonded with Vance as a fellow outsider, said it revealed a hyper partisan streak in the sorts of prestigious institutions—the Ivy League, media organizations—that had enabled his own rise.
So while Vance was loved as the 'Trump whisperer' in 2016 when his book came out, by the time the movie was made in 2020 the environment had changed. It was not enough to describe his family history. He was expected to be critical of the president.
'It was seeing the same media outlets that had heralded his book, turn on the movie in a way that feels very partisan,' said the friend. 'It was not that it inspired his run in politics, but that it was just like two different moments where it felt very hypocritical of these institutions.'
That he would move into politics was no surprise, added the friend. He recounted a yearbook exercise where the students were asked who would be most likely to become president.
Vance is beloved by the MAGA base, along with Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green
His senate campaign released outtakes from a campaign ad featuring his baby daughter
'I think I was the only one who picked J.D.' he said. 'Everyone else picked the pretty boys from prep schools. Sometimes you just have a feeling in your gut that someone has the story, the skills, the intellect, the strategic thinking ...'
Vance threw himself into the race for the Ohio Senate seat that fell vacant with the retirement of Rob Portman. The courtship of Trump began with a 2021 meeting at Mar-a-Lago brokered by Thiel, his former boss.
It caught light during one of the primary debates when Vance was the only one of three Republicans on stage to oppose the idea of a no-fly zone in Ukraine enforced by NATO.
The former president's son, Don Jr., spotted the clip on Twitter. He was already a fan of 'Hillbilly Elegy' he told friends.
'I haven't commented previously, but I'm getting tired of watching the neocons in #OHSen running dishonest ads calling JD Vance a never-Trumper. It's BS,' he tweeted, adding that Vance was '100% America First.'
From them on the Ohio candidate had a powerful supporter at the heart of team Trump. Within weeks he had the endorsement of the former president himself, helping him to a primary win and then an election win in November 2022.
He is now close friends with Don Jr. One may be the son of a billionaire and the other grew up in poverty, but they text or speak on a daily basis. Don Jr. has not been shy in talking up Vance as a future V.P. on his podcast.
'You make a lot of acquaintances in politics, but J.D. is a great and loyal guy who has become a genuine friend,' Don Jr. told DailyMail.com.
'His entire life story is the embodiment of the American dream, but he never forgets where he came from.
'He's also one of the few people I've seen in Washington who not only is a true believer in my father’s agenda, but also has the courage and intelligence to fight back against the Democrats and leftwing media effectively in defense of our commonsense American values.'
Vance married Usha Chilukuri in 2014. They have three children together
Vance's former boss, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, helped fun his Senate campaign
Vance has become one of Trump's most visible defenders on television and a hero to the hardline MAGA movement with his message of America First economic nationalism.
He credits his time in Iraq with developing a skepticism for foreign interventions, and has at times outflanked Trump to the right—with a tougher line on abortion and on sending aid to Ukraine, for example.
Yet in the Senate has managed to work across the aisle.
He teamed up with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, for example, on rail safety legislation in the aftermath of the East Palestine train derailment in his state.
And the new British foreign secretary, from the leftist Labour Party, even claims to be a friend, recognizing in 'Hillbilly Elegy' elements of his own childhood.
'I said to J.D., "Look, we've got different politics, but we're both quite strong Christians and we both share quite a tough upbringing,"' David Lammy told the New York Times recently.
Critics see it differently. Matt K. Lewis, author of 'Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump,' said Vance was a smart guy who had worked out how to rise to the top by ditching his Never Trump credentials.
'He probably rationalizes it a little bit, which is to say: I can take the good parts of populism and the good parts of nationalism, and soften it a little bit. And use Trump or Trumpism as a vehicle to do that,' he said.
'So that's how you would sort of justify what is obviously rank hypocrisy and blind overwhelming ambition.'
A straw poll of attendees at Turning Point Action's People's convention in Detroit last month found that Vance was the clear favorite to be Trump's VP
Vance recently tackled that criticism head on when confronted by Fox News' Bret Baier with his past quotes about Trump.
'Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump,' he said. 'I didn't think he was going to be a good president, Bret.
'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.'
And a close friend said the criticism missed how Vance had always bridled at the idea of being the Trump whisperer for coastal elites.
'One of the things he talks about is how he became very uncomfortable with the fact that the liberal media basically was using him as an avatar to explain Trumpism,' said the friend.
'His view was,that over time, he felt like he was kind of going on a runaway train. And if he didn't pull the brakes, he was going to hate himself pretty quickly.'
After just two years in the Senate, he could be days from being named Trump's running mate.
For his part, Vance was happy to joke with journalists on Tuesday when they asked whether he'd received a Bachelor-style rose or golden ticket from Trump yet.
'I have not gotten a rose or a trinket or any other gifts,' he said outside the Senate chamber, adding that he had no reason to think the speculation about his place on a shortlist was false.
'But I mean, look, it's Trump, right? He is a showman. He loves the fact that people are talking about this a lot.'
Don't be surprised if the V.P. is someone else, he added.
