After scoring an endorsement earlier this week from the former president, a text message has surfaced showing Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance worrying in 2016 that Trump was either “a cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.”
The news demonstrates just how important it is to vet people for their endorsement and how Donald Trump seemingly hasn’t learned that lesson.
“In the Great State of Ohio, the candidate most qualified and ready to win in November is J.D. Vance,” Trump said in a statement released Friday. “We cannot play games. It is all about winning!”
He also acknowledges that Vance has made some disparaging comments about him in the past.
“Like some others, J.D. Vance may have said some not-so-great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades,” Trump beamed.
Trump: ‘J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades.’ Endorses Vance in Ohio Senate race. pic.twitter.com/yo3QFYtETz
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 15, 2022
RELATED: I’m Just Going To Say This: Trump’s Endorsement Of Dr. Oz Is The Wrong Move
J.D. Vance Worried Trump Was ‘America’s Hitler’
We’re all for people finally seeing the light on President Trump’s potential and desire to make America great again, but certain comments seem a bit too far gone.
GOP officials in Ohio urged Trump not to back Vance or any candidate in the Senate race.
“We know there are many qualified candidates in this race who have stood up for the ‘America First’ agenda over the years and have carried the Trump mantle over the years, again with the notable exception of JD Vance,” party leaders said in a letter to Trump.
Vance, a current populist firebrand and author of the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” threatened to back Hillary Clinton in 2016 and called Trump “another opioid.”
“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance he told Fox News last year. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”
JD Vance deleted his tweet about voting for Evan McMullin.
It was here: https://t.co/4k1Xk8AMgv
But still can be viewed on the WebArchive.https://t.co/uLcCLkbur3 pic.twitter.com/LNofBemmsL
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) July 1, 2021
RELATED: Candidate Trump Endorsed To Replace Liz Cheney Called Him ‘Racist And Xenophobic’
Trump’s Endorsements Gone Wrong
How wrong was Vance ‘about the guy’? Try, unhinged liberal lunatic-level wrong.
Georgia Representative Josh McLaurin, a Democrat who claims to have been Vance’s roommate at Yale University, shared a 2016 text message contending to be from the Ohio Senate candidate.
In the message, Vance laments the fact that Trump had become the face of the Republican party.
“We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working-class black people in the process) or a demagogue would,” he allegedly wrote. “We are now at the point.”
The message continued: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a****** like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?”
The screenshot below is @JDVance1’s unfiltered explanation from 2016 of the breakdown in Republican politics that he now personally is trying to exploit.
The “America’s Hitler” bit is at the end.
The public deserves to know the magnitude of this guy’s bad faith. pic.twitter.com/79Z0qSWFWF
— Josh McLaurin (@JoshforGeorgia) April 18, 2022
No Denial
Vance’s campaign didn’t deny the message came from him.
“It’s laughable that the media treats JD not liking Trump 6 years ago as some sort of breaking news, when they’ve already covered it to death since this race began,” his campaign manager told Newsweek.
Vance’s campaign manager added that Trump obviously views him as “a genuine convert.”
Last week, The Political Insider reported that Trump had endorsed Mehmet Oz – better known as Dr. Oz – in the Pennsylvania GOP primary for the U.S. Senate.
This, despite a history of decidedly non-conservative viewpoints on abortion, fracking, and gun control.
NEW PROOF RINO Mehmet Oz is pro-abortion.
“I’m not socially conservative,” Oz said. “We should not be creating obstacles during the difficult time that women have when trying to terminate a pregnancy.”
Abortion to birth. That’s the Hollywood/Oz position https://t.co/AU4ov4lcAr
— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) March 31, 2022
Trump Supports Hageman
Trump has also thrown his support in Wyoming to Harriet Hageman, the attorney running against Liz Cheney in an upcoming primary.
Hageman vociferously supported Cheney during her 2016 congressional campaign, and strongly opposed President Trump at the time.
In fact, she tried to stop Trump from getting the Republican nomination in 2016, and called him “racist and xenophobic.”
Turns out the Republican handpicked by Trump to take down Liz Cheney was a vocal opponent of Trump in 2016.
Harriet Hageman was involved in trying to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee at the convention and decried him as “racist and xenophobic.” https://t.co/SCZqXmFfXD
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 28, 2021
Backing Winners
Each time he makes one of these questionable endorsements, Trump indicates it’s all about backing a winner.
“This is all about winning elections in order to stop the Radical Left maniacs from destroying our country,” Trump said in his endorsement of Oz.
We’re skeptical he wouldn’t start looking for someone better if somebody like Mitt Romney was the best chance of stopping a Democrat in his Senate race.
Maybe we’re wrong. He did, after all, endorse Romney in 2018. Romney has done nothing but stab him in the back since, voting to convict Trump in his impeachment trial over the former President’s alleged role in the Capitol riot.
Will these other candidates do the same – bend the knee for an endorsement only to drive a knife in the back of conservatives when the fate of the country is on the line?
