After former President Donald J. Trump announced his vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, partisan media focused on two different versions of Mr. Vance — both of which have defined his time on the national stage.
Many conservative commentators and outlets applauded the former president’s choice, focusing on Mr. Vance’s conservative credentials as a senator and his loyalty to Mr. Trump, both in his policy positions and his efforts to downplay Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Some conservative publications, however, saw the choice as a boon to Democrats.
Most liberal sites characterized Mr. Vance as an opportunist by focusing on his past status as a prominent critic of Mr. Trump, highlighting Mr. Vance’s denunciations of Mr. Trump during his first presidential campaign. They also showcased the senator’s turn toward Mr. Trump, including his hard-line positions on abortion and the Jan. 6 attack, to paint him as a political extremist.
Here’s how a few outlets covered the news:
FROM THE RIGHT
Breitbart
Mr. Vance rose to prominence in 2016 with the publication of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir about his childhood in Appalachia that doubled as a sociocultural analysis of problems in rural America, including poverty and the opioid crisis. He frequently denounced Mr. Trump that year, calling him “cultural heroin,” an “idiot” and a “total fraud.”
But since his election to the Senate in 2022, Mr. Vance has positioned himself as a conservative populist, closely aligned with Mr. Trump.
He opposes abortion rights, even in the case of rape or incest, and U.S. support for Ukraine in Russia’s war. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance has broken with Republican orthodoxy on certain economic issues: The senator is a proponent of higher tariffs, particularly on China, and has sought to block the proposed sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel, a Japanese company.
But many right-leaning media outlets focused less on his past critiques and more on his current appeal to Mr. Trump’s political base, particularly through his support of the “America First” movement, which calls for a hard-line stance on immigration, isolationism and reducing imports. Breitbart, a conservative site, praised Mr. Vance in all-caps headlines as an “America First Fighter, Grassroots Favorite” and a “Fighter for the American Worker,” and called his selection a “Major Setback” for “Globalists” and “Interventionists.”
Mr. Vance is “widely seen as the heir apparent to the ‘America First’ movement ushered in by Trump’s election in 2016,” Kristina Wong, a Pentagon correspondent for the website, wrote on Monday.
In an interview early this month with Fox Business, Alex Marlow, Breitbart’s editor in chief, said, “I think Vance offers a pretty historic opportunity,” adding that he had told the president “to have someone who is part of the ‘America First’ movement on the ticket.”
FROM THE RIGHT
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
Some conservative observers worried over the pick, arguing that Mr. Vance would not appeal to swing voters, and expressed concern over his views and lack of political experience. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board characterized Mr. Vance as a risky choice shortly after the announcement.
The editorial highlighted his contrast with former Vice President Mike Pence, who “helped Mr. Trump win the White House and then staff his administration,” and criticized Mr. Vance for isolationist foreign policy views, his support for unions and his choice to blame Democrats for the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump.
The choice, the editorial board wrote, suggests Mr. Trump was “so confident in his electoral prospects that he didn’t need a running mate to reach swing voters.”
FROM THE LEFT
MeidasTouch
Numerous liberal media outlets seized on the news of Mr. Vance’s ascent to paint him as a cynical opportunist, since the vice-presidential nominee once vowed he’d never support Mr. Trump.
Ron Filipkowski, the editor in chief of the liberal outlet MeidasTouch.com, wrote that Mr. Vance went “all in on Trump sycophancy” to help win his race for U.S. Senate in 2022, in an article with the headline “14 Worst Things JD Vance Said About Trump.”
“In just a few short years, Vance has become perhaps an even worse version of the qualities he decried in Trump,” Mr. Filipkowski wrote.
In other articles published on Monday, the site highlighted Mr. Vance’s past support for cuts to Medicare and Social Security, and the Biden administration’s opposition to the pick. Aaron Parnas, a writer for MeidasTouch, called Mr. Vance “one of the most extreme VP picks in recent memory.”
FROM THE LEFT
The New Republic
The New Republic, a liberal news and commentary site, also highlighted Mr. Vance’s ideological evolution on Mr. Trump. Hafiz Rashid, an associate writer for the outlet, pointed to Mr. Vance’s criticisms of Mr. Trump after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in October 2016, when Mr. Trump bragged about sexual assault, and after the Charlottesville riot in 2017, when Mr. Trump drew a false equivalence between “antiracist protesters” and neo-Nazis.
“Like many other Republicans, the self-described ‘Never Trump’ Republican soon changed his tune on Trump, fully backing Trumpism by the time he began his run for the Senate in 2022,” Mr. Rashid wrote.
Also on Monday, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, an associate writer for the website, said the choice of Mr. Vance cut against Mr. Trump’s stated goal to bring “unity” to the country after Saturday’s assassination attempt, as Mr. Vance had “immediately used the moment to deride liberals” and President Biden.
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