Presumptive GOP presidential candidate and 45th president Donald Trump has announced his running mate will be Ohio’s junior US Senator JD Vance.
Trump shared the news about 90 minutes ahead of the scheduled announcement on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention.
BREAKING: Donald Trump chooses JD Vance as his Vice President pic.twitter.com/FO2KBSjmvj
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 15, 2024
The 45th president was formally chosen by GOP delegates earlier in the day to be the Republican nominee for president in the November elections.
Two of the four people short-listed as Trump’s potential running mates were informed Monday afternoon they had not been selected for the position. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Florida’s US Senator Marco Rubio received the notices just a couple of hours before the final decision was to be announced. A third member of the short list, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, did not receive a notice but was considered by most pundits to be “too nice” to be chosen for the post.
That left Ohio Senator JD Vance, age 39, serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2023.
Vance is also the youngest of those who were on the short list.
ATF agents and Ohio State Patrol officers were seen outside the Vance family home this weekend, and the senator was driven in a motorcade on Monday to attend the first day of the Republican National Convention — all early signs that he was Trump’s choice for the post.
Pro-Israel Lawmaker
On October 7, within hours of the invasion of Israel by Gaza’s Iranian proxy, Hamas, who led thousands of terrorists to slaughter some 1,200 people and abduct 250 others within a few hours, Vance issued a statement.
“The horrible terrorist attacks launched by Hamas are an act of war,” said Vance. “We must unequivocally condemn these heinous acts of violence against innocent civilians and the Iranian regime for funding the terrorists who carried them out.
“Today, it is of utmost importance that the United States stand with our allies in Israel and offer our prayers for the victims of these attacks.
“We must also recognize the intent behind these acts of war. As our allies in Israel strive for peace in the Middle East, the Iranians hope these attacks will undermine the progress our allies have made toward stability in the region.
“Israel has a right to self-defense – that includes striking back with overwhelming force against their enemies. Now as ever, we must support our allies in their fight for freedom and security. May God watch over them.”
This past May, Vance told the Jewish Insider news outlet that the best way to avoid a regional conflict that would require greater American involvement in the Middle East would be by strengthening Israel together with Sunni nations, particularly those who signed the Abraham Accords alliance.
“The way that we get there in Israel is by combining the Abraham Accords approach with the defeat of Hamas,” Vance told the news outlet. “That gets us to a place where Israel and the Sunni nations can play a regional counterweight to Iran.
“We don’t want a broader regional war. We don’t want to get involved in a broader regional war. The best way to do that is to ensure that Israel, with the Sunni nations, can actually police their own region of the world. That allows us to spend less time and resources on the Middle East and focus more on East Asia, in the same way that we want our own allies to do the job in Europe [with Ukraine].”
During the Iraq war, Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps and served as a combat journalist assigned to the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. He later attended Ohio State University, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in political science and philosophy.
After graduating from Ohio State, Vance attended Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. He graduated from Yale in 2013 with a Juris Doctor.
