Vance accepts VP nomination at GOP convention

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, formally accepted the nomination as the Republican Vice-presidential candidate at the GOP convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday night (July 17). Trump selected the first term senator as his running mate on Monday.

Vance’s 36-minute speech highlighted his poor upbringing in the rural Midwest, his service as a U.S. Marine, and his career as a venture capitalist.

On a night themed “Make America Strong Again,” the Yale-educated Vance weighed in on foreign trade, overseas wars, drug addiction, and 2nd amendment rights.

“At each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or Michigan and other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war,” said Vance, a vocal critic of sending U.S. aid to Ukraine. “Somehow, a real estate developer from New York by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. President Trump knew, even then, that we needed leaders who would put America first.”

Vance, 39, was introduced by his wife, Usha who is a prominent lawyer and daughter of Indian immigrants. He told personal stories about his mother’s alcohol addiction – she’s been sober for 10 years – and how he was raised by his grandmother.

Previously a Trump critic who suggested the former president was “cultural heroin” and “America’s Hitler,” Vance has squarely been in the former president’s corner. He attended the Manhattan trial of Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony charges earlier this year in a case involving hush money payments to former adult star Stormy Daniels.

Vance, like a majority of Republicans at the convention, dismissed those convictions and other pending charges amid claims that the U.S. justice system has been weaponized against Trump, who appointed a record number of judges and three members to the U.S. Supreme Court during his first term.

To solidify his loyalty to Trump, Vance closed his speech on this note:

“I promise you this: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” he said. “And every single day for the next four years, when I walk into that White House to help President Trump, I will be doing it for you, for your family, for your future and for this great country.”