Peter Jamison at WP:
Vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has a go-to explanation for his evolution from outspoken critic to impassioned defender of Donald Trump: He says he was converted by Trump’s achievements in the White House.
Vance has said watching the former president enact his populist agenda for left-behind Americans transformed him from a “Never Trump” conservative in 2016 to a Trump supporter in 2020.
But Vance privately expressed a very different verdict on Trump as the former president’s first term was nearing its end, previously unreported messages obtained by The Washington Post show.
In the direct messages — sent during Trump’s final year in office to an acquaintance over the social media platform then known as Twitter — Vance harshly criticized his future running mate’s record of governance and said Trump had not fulfilled his economic agenda.
“Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy),” Vance wrote in February 2020.
Anthony Scaramucci on the Trump-Vance relationship:
Is trouble on the horizon for the Trump-Vance partnership? 🧐 @Scaramucci shares his thoughts. pic.twitter.com/ehTVcVYNU1
— The Rest Is Politics US (@RestPoliticsUS) September 23, 2024
