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Vance Once Thought Trump Was Unfit for Nation’s Highest Office. Here’s What He Wrote

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Claim:

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance once said of President-elect Donald Trump, “Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”

Rating:

Context

After Trump chose him for his running mate in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Vance declared: “I was wrong about Donald Trump,” referring to the many critical statements he had previously made about Trump.

Claims that U.S. Vice President-elect JD Vance once said of President-elect Donald Trump, “Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office,” circulated online during the 2024 election. 

The claim was posted to Instagram (archived) when Vance was first announced as Trump’s pick for vice president, along with a caption that read in part, “JD Vance is officially Trump’s pick for Vice President, and the only thing we agree with him on is this quote from 2016.⁠” 

The claim has been repeated in various (archivedposts (archived) on X, and can even be purchased as a bumper sticker on eBay.

The claim that Vance once said “Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office” is attributed correctly and comes from an op-ed written by Vance and published in The New York Times on April 4, 2016. 

The line comes near the end of the op-ed, titled “Why Trump’s Antiwar Message Resonates with White America,” in which Vance theorized about the appeal of Trump to a Republican base that he thought was disillusioned with the party and its chosen candidates in the wake of the War on Terror. 

The op-ed came two months before the release of Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which also garnered attention at the time for shining a light on the rise of Trump’s popularity with working-class voters. 

The full context of the New York Times quote reads: 

Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office. But to those humiliated by defeat, he promises we’ll win again. To those discouraged by a government unable to care for the people it sent to war, he promises to take care of our veterans. To those voters furious at politicians who sent their children to fight and bleed and die in Iraq, he tells them what no major Republican politician in a decade has said — that the war was a terrible mistake imposed on the country by an incompetent president.

Anger about the wars isn’t the only reason voters support Mr. Trump. But his willingness to say what other G.O.P. candidates won’t reflects what people like most about him: his complete break with the party elite. Because the last time Republican voters put a member of that elite in the White House, he sent their children on a bloody misadventure. Until others recognize that failure, expect many to support the one major candidate who does.

Vance wrote a similar piece for USA Today published on Feb. 18, 2016, titled “Trump Speaks for Those Bush Betrayed,” in which he reflected on the Sept. 16, 2015, Republican debate and wrote, “I quickly realized that Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd. But as a Marine Corps veteran who grew up in a struggling Rust Belt town, I understand why many adore him — why I, if only briefly, cheered him on.”

Vance’s criticism of Trump prior to being named as his running mate for the 2024 election is well documented and the vice president-elect said “I was wrong about Donald Trump” during the vice presidential debate with Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 1, 2024. Snopes reached out to Vance’s team for comment and will update this article if we get a response. 

Snopes has fact-checked many of Vance’s statements before, including Vance calling Trump “America’s Hitler,” claims that Vance once said school shootings are a “fact of life” and that he once said “car seat rules” are causing Americans to have fewer kids

Sources

– YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou0Qmcdfn04. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.

—. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmQ6GDUcxtw. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.

JD Vance. “Opinion: Why Trump’s Antiwar Message Resonates with White America.” The New York Times, 4 Apr. 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/opinion/campaign-stops/why-trumps-antiwar-message-resonates-with-white-america.html.

McClurg, Jocelyn. “Best-Selling ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Helps Explain Trump’s Appeal.” USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2016/08/17/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-donald-trump-usa-today-best-selling-books-book-buzz/88862854/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.

“Trump Picks Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, a Once-Fierce Critic Turned Loyal Ally, as His GOP Running Mate.” AP News, 15 July 2024, https://apnews.com/article/trump-vice-president-vance-rubio-burgum-rnc-6cc438a8370a21b2631f5a53b06b71d0.

Vance, J. D. “Trump Speaks for Those Bush Betrayed: Column.” USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/18/donald-trump-white-working-class-rust-belt-voters-elections-2016-column/80422422/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.
 



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