Republican Senator JD Vance has been denounced by a former friend as a political “chameleon” with a “lack of integrity.”
Lawyer Sofia Nelson befriended both JD and Usha Vance while they were attending Yale Law School. Nelson said during an interview with CNN‘s Erin Burnett on Monday that the 2024 running mate of former President Donald Trump had changed his opinions on “literally every imaginable issue” since entering politics.
Nelson, who is transgender and uses they/them pronouns, had a falling out with JD Vance when he launched his political career and backed bans on transgender minors receiving gender-affirming care. They told Burnett that Vance’s shift in opinions were motivated by the senator’s ambition for “political power and wealth.”
“What I’ve seen is a chameleon,” Nelson said. “Someone who is able to change their positions and their values depending on what will amass them political power and wealth. And I think that’s really unfortunate, because it reflects a lack of integrity.”
“This isn’t someone who evolved on one or two issues with new information,” they added. “This is someone who has changed their opinion on literally every imaginable issue … and changed the way they speak about people.”
Nelson went on to say that Vance “was compassionate” and supported them as a transgender person, despite having disagreements on some political issues during their friendship of more than a decade.
“He always approached conversations with respect and kindness,” said Nelson. “And what we’ve seen with Donald Trump is a callousness and a cruelty in the way he talks about people … he’s a bully and he calls people names.”
“When JD decided to run for the Senate in 2022, he started adopting that similar persona,” they continued. “He just started talking in this divisive, dismissive and cruel way about people who were different from him. And that’s just not the person that I used to know.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to Vance’s office via email on Monday night.
On Saturday, The New York Times published an article on 90 emails and text messages from Vance to Nelson from 2014 to 2017. The then-future senator expressed opinions in the messages that differ greatly from his more recent public remarks, including telling Nelson: “I hate the police.”
Luke Schroeder, Vance spokesperson, said in a statement issued after the article was published that it was “unfortunate this individual chose to leak decade-old private conversations between friends to The New York Times,” while insisting that “despite their disagreements, Senator Vance cares for Sofia and wishes Sofia the very best.”
Vance’s opinions on Trump have shifted considerably over the years, with the Hillbilly Elegy author previously declaring himself a “never Trumper” and questioning whether the then-future president was “America’s Hitler” in 2016.
Last month, Vance told The New York Times that he “first met Trump in 2021” and changed his opinions on the former president soon after.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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