JD Vance, brawler for Trump, avoids Harris and Pence mistakes

The Herald Scotland

18-05-2025

He lectured Europe, berated Ukraine's president, pressured Greenland, came out swinging on behalf of President Donald Trump's most controversial nominees and found himself tangled up in a controversial Signal group chat that led to the ouster of a top national security official.
More: VP Vance, who Pope Leo XIV previously criticized, to attend pope's first mass in Vatican City
Allies, strategists and even some Democrats say Vance's assertive approach could pay off if he runs for president in 2028.
"He is as directly engaged and active as any vice president that I can remember," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told USA TODAY.
In an administration currently running the lowest early-months public opinion rating in modern history, however, Vance's forcefulness carries long-term risk.
More: JD Vance says war between India and Pakistan will be 'none of our business'
Vance is cultivating the Republican base, which he'll need to win primaries and raise money in 2028. But he's also tying himself to policies that could be considered "missteps" or "botches," says Joel Goldstein, a professor emeritus at Saint Louis University and one of the foremost historians of the vice presidency.
"He recently dropped the Ohio State trophy, and you know, the question is whether that will be a metaphor for his vice presidency," Goldstein said of the awkward April incident in which Vance fumbled his alma mater's championship hardware.
At 40, Vance is the youngest vice president since Richard Nixon. Vance is the first millennial to stand a heartbeat from the presidency.
His public profile has set him apart from recent predecessors, whose efforts not to overshadow their bosses cast public doubt on their accomplishments when they sought the presidency.
Such was the case for Mike Pence, whose defining characteristic in the 2024 GOP primary became his refusal to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election, and Kamala Harris, who abruptly took the mantle of the Democratic nomination from Joe Biden in 2024 and spent much of the short campaign reintroducing herself to the country.
Harris struggled with visibility and image issues throughout her vice presidency, not to mention Biden's decision to task her with the no-win assignment of addressing the root causes of illegal migration.
But Vance is in a unique position compared with recent vice presidents, said Democratic strategist Ashley Etienne, who was communications director to Harris during much of her first year as vice president. Vance's boss is term-limited by the Constitution, and that gives him a different mandate, she said.
"He is the standard bearer for the MAGA movement, which demands he is aggressively out front reinforcing and expanding their base," Etienne said. "He knows the parameters, Trump's history and temperament, so he's going to move with caution and intentionality to position himself."
Etienne added: "It's smart strategy."
Vance settles in as vice president
It was four days after the inauguration.
Vance and his family had just moved into the vice president's residence at the Naval Observatory in northwest DC, living among unpacked boxes.
The new vice president and his wife, Usha, were hosting their first official dinner guests: Johnson, the House speaker, and his wife, Kelly, when Vance received a call.
Pete Hegseth's nomination for defense secretary was in trouble in the Senate. Vance would have to cast the first tie-breaking vote of his vice presidency after three Republican defections.
"He apologized, and we said, 'Go, man, go,'" recalled Johnson, who stayed behind and had dessert with Kelly and Usha.
Although he'd only been in office for a few days Vance was already accustomed to saving Trump's troubled nominees on Capitol Hill, and has been doing so ever since.
More: Marco's moment: Rubio in the hot seat amid Trump team shakeup
Vance went to bat for Trump's first nominee for attorney general, the scandal-scarred Matt Gaetz. He gave opening remarks at a hearing to confirm defense policy chief Elbridge Colby, whose foreign policy views were attacked by some Republicans as out of step with the administration.
He also threw his support behind ousted national security adviser Michael Waltz. Vance argued to Fox News that the shakeup, which involved Trump making Waltz his nominee for United Nations ambassador, could be seen as a promotion.
Vance's ability to articulate Trump's vision to his former Senate colleagues and the public has made him a major asset, his allies say.
"JD is fantastic at really sharing a positive message about the Trump agenda, the Trump team, and he's been one of the most effective advocates," said Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill Vance's old seat.
Since leaving the Senate in January, Vance has continued to be a regular at the GOP's weekly policy luncheon.
Often, guests make brief remarks, take a few questions and leave, said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the GOP's Policy Committee chair.
More: A 2028 Rubio rivalry? Nothing to see here, says JD Vance
But Vance stayed to dine with senators at a recent meeting, she said. "He's always welcome, and we always look forward to it, because we know he's very close to what's going on. He's not a vice president in a ceremonial role only."
Vance has lent a helping hand with big issues such as securing an India-Pakistan ceasefire. Trump also asked him to broker an agreement to save Tik-Tok.
The latter arrangement has floundered amid a trade war with China and was not part of a deal to temporarily bring down tariffs last week.
While he is still early in his tenure, polls show Vance's approach may be helping his image.
His favorability rating was lower than Trump's in a March poll taken by NBC. Yet, more Americans approve of him now than they did last September after comments he made about "childless cat ladies" resurfaced and Democrats tagged him as "weird."
Still, Vance's eagerness to amplify Trump's message on hot button issues such as Russia's war against Ukraine and his direct involvement in pushing through controversial nominations will make it harder for the vice president to claim ignorance if public opinion goes south, Goldstein, the historian, said.
"It's gonna be hard for him to say, you know, 'I wasn't involved,' or to distance himself," Goldstein said.
More: JD Vance's half brother Cory Bowman will face off against Democrat in Cincinnati mayor race
In a statement, Taylor Van Kirk, press secretary for Vance, said: "The Vice President has approached his role with a clear focus: advancing the President's America First agenda, because that's the right thing to do for the American people and for the country."
There's a close tie between Trump's perceived success and Vance's political future, anyway, said Johnson, who said that Vance, as vice president, "is probably the front runner for the party's nomination next time around."
"I think he'll be - I hope he'll be fairly evaluated on his own merits," the House speaker added.
Lessons learned in early days
Since becoming vice president, Vance has repeatedly run into trouble on foreign policy. Vance's hectoring message to Europe in February on his first trip abroad landed like a lead balloon with American allies.
His next foreign trip, to Greenland, angered Denmark. After Vance's wife Usha received blowback for a planned solo visit to attend a dogsled race, amid Trump's vocal push to annex the territory, the vice president and his team pivoted.
They recast the trip as a national security focused one, with Vance defending Trump's insistence that the U.S. may need to use military force against NATO ally Denmark to acquire Greenland.
That same week, the explosive Signal chat became public, in which Waltz accidentally added a journalist to discussions of an impending military strike. In a largely overlooked comment, Vance told his colleagues he disagreed with Trump over striking Houthi militants.
The vice president understands it's not the "JD Vance show, it's the Donald Trump presidency," Capito said in April.
"You see him every now and then diverge an opinion but not very frequently," the West Virginia senator said. "And I think maybe he did early on, and I think he probably learned that's probably not what he should be doing."
Vance brawled with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during an Oval Office meeting at the end of February. He called Zelenskyy disrespectful and told him better diplomacy could have prevented the conflict. Trump joined in to scold the visiting leader.
But after a Munich Security Conference meeting in early May, where Vance told attendees the U.S. was moving beyond its push for a 30-day ceasefire in the war, Trump seemed to contradict his vice president. Trump offered to mediate the conflict and renewed his call for an unconditional ceasefire.
Van Kirk, the vice president's spokeswoman, Vance and Trump "are aligned on all issues, especially on wanting the killing to stop in these overseas conflicts."
Vance has done a good job of staying aligned with the president, said Marc Short, a close friend and former chief of staff to Pence.
"I don't think it's been proven yet as to whether or not the MAGA coalition is transferable, but I think that there's no doubt that he stayed close to the president's policy positions, so that should benefit him regardless," Short said.
The key to winning over MAGA? Staying close to Trump
On Inauguration Day in 2017, Trump filed for reelection. Yet, four months into his second term, Trump had declined to name Vance his political successor.
He offered up his secretary of state and interim national security adviser, Marco Rubio, alongside Vance as a potential heir during an NBC interview earlier this month.
"You look at Marco, you look at JD Vance, who's fantastic," Trump said. "I could name 10, 15, 20 people right now."
Vance insisted in a Fox News interview that he was not bothered, and he does not have a rivalry with Rubio.
"The president's not going to name a successor 110 days into his administration, nor should he," Vance said. "I can see myself doing a really good job for the next 1,100 days, and then the American people can figure it out from there," the he said.
While his national approval ratings are fair, Vance's political stock has certainly improved with Trump loyalists.
"It's probably created some more challenges among people who are either independents or Democrats or Republicans who don't consider themselves part of the MAGA crowd," Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster said.
But like other strategists, he said Vance's future "is completely tied up with Donald Trump's."
In the end, Vance's odds of success in 2028 may be influenced by an audience of one.
Contributing: Zac Anderson