Trump running mate JD Vance makes speech appealing to America's 'forgotten communities'
JD Vance officially accepted his party's nomination for vice president, as ITV News' US correspondent Dan Rivers reports.
Donald Trump’s running mate took to the stage at the Republican National Convention (RNC) on Wednesday night, sharing his story of his upbringing and making the case that his party best understands the challenges facing struggling Americans.
JD Vance was catapulted into the spotlight when he was named as the former president's choice to run alongside him on the ticket in the US election on November 5.
He delivered the second most important speech of the week after Trump’s own due on Thursday, describing his hard-set childhood and appealing to "forgotten communities".
He said: “To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this - I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”
Speaking to a packed arena at the RNC, the Ohio senator's speech was geared towards Rust Belt voters who helped drive Trump’s surprise 2016 victory, voicing their anger and frustration.
“In small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war,” he said.
Vance grew up poor in Kentucky and Ohio, his mother addicted to drugs and his father absent.
He later joined the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School, and went on to the highest levels of US politics.
“Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I’d be standing here tonight,” he said.
Vance, who had never previously attended a Republican convention, used his speech to criticise Biden, using his relative youth to draw a contrast with the 81-year-old president.
He said: “Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington as long as I’ve been alive.
“For half a century, he’s been a champion of every single policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer.”
Biden’s campaign responded with a blistering statement calling Vance “unprepared, unqualified, and willing to do anything Donald Trump demands.”
At 39, Vance is one of the youngest people ever to serve on a presidential ticket and he’s only been in the Senate for less than two years.
He is already being cast as a heir to Trump's 'Make America Great Again' movement.
Vance’s priority for his first major appearance was to avoid any mistakes that derail a disciplined convention and avoid overshadowing Trump.
But win or lose in November, Vance is going to be a fixture in US politics in the coming years and his speech represented a defining moment for his career.
Vance, the author of the infamous memoir Hillbilly Elegy was elected to the Senate in 2022 after receiving a boost from Trump in a contentious Republican primary.
It was a reversal from just six years earlier. Vance was a key voice in the “Never Trump” movement during the 2016 election and has a well-documented history of opposing the former president publicly.
He earned Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 Ohio Republican Senate primary after a concerted yearlong effort by Vance to embrace a new image as a leading MAGA (Make America Great Again) proponent, courting the former president at meetings in Mar-a-Lago and through appearances on Fox News.
In a display of loyalty, Vance was one of several potential running mates and Republican lawmakers to stand by Trump’s side at a New York courthouse during his criminal hush money trial.
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