Trump VP pick JD Vance pledges to ‘commit to the working man’ as populism takes center stage at RNC

MILWAUKEE – Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 race for the White House, struck a populist tone as he formally accepted the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination Wednesday night, pledging he will be a vice president who "never forgets" where he came from.

Delivering his acceptance speech two days after Trump named the 39-year-old Ohio senator as his running mate, Vance said the GOP convention marked a "celebration of what America once was, and with God's grace, what it will soon be again."

"It is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren," he added.

Vance – who described the Republican Party as being "united in our love for this country and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas" for the next four years – reflected fondly on his upbringing in a "small town where people spoke their minds."

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Republican vice presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, speaks on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Vance also pointed to Biden's decades-long career in politics, saying that when he "was a sophomore in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good American middle-class manufacturing jobs."

"When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq," he added. "And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan and states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war."

Vance also touched on housing and the economy during his remarks, declaring that "Joe Biden's inflation crisis, my friends, is really an affordability crisis."

"Many of the people that I grew up with can't afford to pay more for groceries, more for gas, more for rent. And that's exactly what Joe Biden's economy has given them," he said.

Vance, arguably as vice presidential nominee the MAGA movement's heir apparent, made his comments in his address to the roughly 2,400 delegates and thousands of other attendees packed inside Milwaukee's Fiserv Arena, and the millions of Americans watching the GOP convention from home.

"Let me tell you about the future. President Trump's vision is so simple and yet so powerful. We're done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We'll commit to the working man," he said.

"We're done importing foreign labor. We're going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages," he continued. "We're done buying energy from countries that hate us. We're going to get it right here from American workers in Pennsylvania, in Ohio and across the country."

The convention kicked off just two days after the former president survived an assassination attempt at a Trump rally in western Pennsylvania where one spectator and the shooter were killed.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, speaks on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

"I want all Americans to go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life. Consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump, and then look at that photo of him, defiant, fist in the air. When Donald Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him," Vance said Wednesday.

"What did he call us to do for our country? To fight. To fight for America, even in his most perilous moment, we were on his mind," he added. "His instinct was for us, for our country, to call us to something higher, to something greater, to once again be citizens who ask what our country needs of us."

Vance, a former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" before running for elective office, said at a financial event house before his prime time address at the convention that "we're gonna get out there and try to fire up the crowd tonight."

And from the reactions of the audience of party faithful and MAGA minions inside the arena, Vance succeeded.

Vance gave a moving tribute to his mother, Beverly Aikins, during his remarks Wednesday night.

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"It's about single moms like mine, who struggle with money and addiction but never gave up," Vance said as his mother sat watching in former Trump's Friends and Family box for the speech. "I am proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober. I love you, mom."

Vance stepped aside and acknowledged his mother while the crowd belted out a chant of "JD's Mom! JD's Mom!"

Trump, in making his greatly anticipated and high-stakes running mate announcement as the GOP convention kicked off in Midwestern swing-state Wisconsin's largest city, will now share the ticket with one of his top supporters in the Senate and a one-time Trump critic who has transformed into a leading America First ally and MAGA champion.

The former president and Vance teamed up on Monday and Tuesday nights in the family box above the floor of the GOP convention.

Vance's story began with Vance growing up in a working-class family in a small city in southwestern Ohio. His parents divorced when he was young, and as his mother struggled for years with drug and alcohol abuse, Vance was raised in part by his maternal grandparents.

U.S. Sen. JD Vance and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance look on as he is nominated for the office of Vice President on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.   (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

After high school graduation, Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, including a deployment to Iraq. He later graduated from The Ohio State University and then earned a law degree at Yale University.

Vance, who lives in Cincinnati, moved to San Francisco after law school and worked as a principal in a venture capital firm owned by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who later became a major financial supporter of Vance's successful 2022 campaign for the Senate.

Before running for Senate, Vance grabbed national attention after his book "Hillbilly Elegy" – which tells his story of growing up in a struggling steel mill city and his roots in Appalachian Kentucky – became a New York Times bestseller and was later made into a Netflix film. The story spotlighted the everyday struggles and values of many working-class Americans who became supporters of Trump's policies.

Vance was a vocal critic of Trump when the former president first ran for the White House in the 2016 cycle. 

However, Vance eventually supported Trump, praising the former president's tenure in the White House, and in a Fox News interview in 2021, he apologized for his earlier criticism of Trump.

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Trump's endorsement of Vance days before the 2022 GOP Senate primary boosted him to victory in a crowded, competitive and combustible race.

"I think the American people are going to love to hear JD’s story of overcoming adversity as a young man, becoming a Marine and serving his country in uniform in Iraq, and going on to becoming a business leader, and now a successful elected leader as well," fellow veteran and fellow Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas told Fox News on Tuesday.

Former President Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 15, 2024.  (REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Democrats, in a taste of things to come, wasted no time in criticizing Vance on Monday.

Vance was "a clone of Trump on the issues," President Biden told reporters. Vice President Kamala Harris, in a campaign video released on Wednesday, charged that "Vance will be loyal only to Trump, not to our country."

And hours before Vance's speech, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a top Biden campaign surrogate, called Trump's running mate "the perfect Frankenstein monster."

Fox News' Alexis McAdams contributed to this report

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