Editor's note: JD Vance's full speech from day three of the 2024 Republican National Convention can be found in the video above.
On the third day of the 2024 National Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance addressed the crowd for the first time since being named former President Donald Trump's running mate, weaving together the story of his rural upbringing with Trump’s successes in the business world in an effort to showcase how the two paths could merge together to form a strong basis for the campaign ahead.
“We love this country, and we are united to win,” he said. “My message to fellow Americans: Shouldn’t we be governed by a party who isn’t afraid to debate ideas and to come to the best solution?”
Vance, a former US Marine and Yale law school graduate who was elected to the Senate in Nov. 2022, said that his rural Ohio upbringing could have never prepared him for his catapult to the big stage of presidential politics, but said that he wouldn’t forget that upbringing on the journey ahead.
“This moment is not about me. It’s about all of us, and that’s what we’re fighting for,” he said. “I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”
Vance praised Trump for being on the “right” side of the war in Iraq, the NAFTA trade deal of the 1990s, and trade deals made with China, and blasted President Joe Biden as being on the wrong side of all three issues.
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“At each step of the way, in small towns like mine, jobs were sent overseas, and our children were sent to war,” he said.
The senator promised that the GOP would “fight for American citizens” and would push on that message through the November elections.
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Biden was diagnosed with COVID on Wednesday and is coming under continued scrutiny to step aside, but his campaign issued a statement characterizing Vance as “unprepared, unqualified and willing to do anything Donald Trump demands” following the address.
“Vance is Project 2025 in human form, an agenda that puts extremism and the ultra-wealthy over our democracy,” the campaign said.
Biden’s campaign argued that Trump and Vance’s policies would slash health care, raise costs on families and give corporations additional tax cuts if they were elected to the White House.
Outside of Vance’s address, Republicans heaped praise on Trump for his actions following Saturday’s assassination attempt. Donald Trump Jr. praised his father as having “the heart of a lion” after he was fired at during the Pennsylvania rally, and Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson said that he was proud to be able to say he “served a president who literally took a bullet for our country.”
Emotions ran high at several times during the evening, including when Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed in an attack on Kabul airport in the lead-up to U.S. troop withdrawal in 2022 were brought on-stage to describe their experiences.
Peter Navarro also fired up the crowd, speaking on the same day that he was released from prison after serving a sentence for refusing to appear before the January 6 Select Committee.
“If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, they will come for you,” he said.
The convention will wrap up on Thursday with the main event, as Trump addresses the delegates in his first major speech since Saturday’s assassination attempt.
It is expected that UFC boss Dana White will introduce the former president. Trump’s son Eric Trump is also expected to address the convention, as is conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.
Who is JD Vance?
Vance is an Ivy League graduate and a businessman, but his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy ” explores his blue-collar roots. It made him a national name when it was published in 2016. The book is now seen as a window into some of the cultural forces that propelled Trump to the White House that year, earning Vance a reputation as someone who could help explain the maverick New York businessman’s appeal in middle America.
“Hillbilly Elegy” also introduced Vance to the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. loved the book and knew of Vance when he went to launch his political career. The two hit it off and have remained friends.
After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Vance returned to his native Ohio and set up an anti-opioid charity. He also took to the lecture circuit and was a favored guest at Republican Lincoln Day dinners where his personal story — including the hardship Vance endured because of his mother’s drug addiction — resonated.
Vance's appearances were opportunities to sell his ideas for fixing the country and helped lay the groundwork for entering politics in 2021, when he sought the Senate seat vacated by Republican Rob Portman, who retired.
Trump endorsed Vance. Vance went on to win a crowded Republican primary and the general election.
JD and his wife Usha Vance live in Cincinnati, and have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Where does Vance stand on major issues? What about Donald Trump?
Vance was a “never Trump” Republican in 2016. He called Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” for office. Vance, whose wife, lawyer Usha Chilukuri Vance, is Indian-American, also criticized Trump’s racist rhetoric, saying he could be “America’s Hitler.”
But by the time Vance met Trump in 2021, he had reversed his opinion, citing Trump’s accomplishments as president. Both men downplayed Vance's past scathing criticism.
Once elected, Vance became a fierce Trump ally on Capitol Hill, unceasingly defending Trump’s policies and behavior.
In his first interview after accepting Trump’s offer to join the ticket, Vance sought to explain his metamorphosis. Vance said in a Fox News Channel interview Monday that Trump was a great president and changed his mind.
“I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans, because again he delivered that peace and prosperity,” Vance said.
Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, called Vance a leading voice for the conservative movement, on key issues including a shift away from interventionist foreign policy, free market economics and “American culture writ large.”
Democrats call him an extremist, citing provocative positions Vance has taken but sometimes later amended. Vance signaled support for a national 15-week abortion ban during his Senate run, for instance, then softened that stance once Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed a 2023 abortion rights amendment.
On the 2020 election, he said he wouldn't have certified the results immediately if he had been vice president and that Trump had “a very legitimate grievance.” He has put conditions on honoring the results of the 2024 election that echo Trump's. A litany of government and outside investigations have not found any election fraud that could have swung the outcome of Trump's 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
In the Senate, Vance sometimes embraces bipartisanship. He and Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown co-sponsored a railway safety bill following a fiery train derailment in the Ohio village of East Palestine. He's sponsored legislation extending and increasing funding for Great Lakes restoration, and supported bipartisan legislation boosting workers and families.
