MILWAUKEE — U.S. Sen. JD Vance debuted Wednesday as Donald Trump’s running mate with a speech loaded with appeals to working-class voters and stark warnings to foreign allies about a return of the “America First” ideology.
The Ohio Republican promised to back higher foreign tariffs to boost manufacturing jobs and served notice to global allies there would be “no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”
His speech to the Republican National Convention singled out disillusioned voters in a trio of swing “blue wall” states that Biden captured in 2020 and are pivotal to GOP ambitions in November: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Amid the callbacks to his hardscrabble Ohio upbringing were promises of protectionist trade policies and efforts to tamp down inflation at the root of an “affordability crisis” hobbling the middle class.
“We will build factories again, put people to work making real products for American families, made with the hands of American workers,” he said.
“Together, we will protect the wages of American workers— union and nonunion alike — and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of our hardworking citizens.”
The Fiserv Forum crowd lapped up his remarks, roaring at his applause lines and erupting into laughter at his jokes. At one point, the Ohio delegation chanted “Mamaw!” as he recalled a story about his grandmother made famous to readers through his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir.
While Vance was the evening’s headliner, Trump dominated the night. The former president’s son and granddaughter each showered him with praise from the stage, as did a coterie of aides and allies.
U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, the former White House physician, called him the “greatest president this country has ever had” and marveled that he survived an assassination attempt days ago by taking a “bullet for our country.”
And Vance opened his speech praising Trump’s defiant clenched-fist response to a would-be assassin’s bullet on Saturday at his Pennsylvania rally and dubbed him, with a prophetic flourish, the “once and future president.”
Vance’s speech and the pro-Trump festivities that accompanied it played out against the backdrop of growing Democratic efforts to pressure President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race over worries he can’t defeat Trump in November.
The president, who said Wednesday that he tested positive for the coronavirus, has refused calls to cede the nomination to another Democrat. But the movement to sideline him, spurred by his poor performance in last month’s debate in Atlanta, gained new urgency.
Biden’s Democratic critics successfully lobbied to delay his nomination by a week, stymying a push by his campaign. A new AP-NORC poll showed nearly two-thirds of Democrats want the party to nominate a different candidate.
And U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the leading Democratic Senate candidate, became the highest-profile lawmaker from his party to urge Biden to drop out of the race. He said he had “serious concerns” about whether the president could thwart Trump’s comeback bid.
HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, pushed out a video of Vice President Kamala Harris saying that Vance would be “loyal only to Trump, not to our country” and would rubber-stamp the former president’s worst instincts.
Other Democrats served up reminders of Vance’s past skepticism of Trump, a man he once derided as “cultural heroin.” Democratic state Sen. Josh McLaurin, his classmate at Yale Law School, predicted the “feel-good” unity messaging would soon fall apart.
‘Your wake-up call’
Promises of toned-down rhetoric after the failed assassination attempt of Trump at a rally over the weekend gave way to fiery invective.
Republicans featured at the convention Wednesday tore into Biden’s handling of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They promised to beef up border security. And they opposed Democratic green energy policies and environmental regulations.
“Four more years of Joe will usher in an era of brownouts and blackouts,” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said after opening his remarks by asking the RNC crowd “who will make American energy-dominant?” They roared, “Trump,” though the U.S. is already the world’s largest producer of oil.
HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The most emotional display came when Gold Star family members of several of the 13 soldiers killed by a suicide bombing during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan gathered on stage holding pictures of their loved ones. Several blamed Biden for the deaths.
The crowd repeated each slain soldier’s name in unison, as they would in a mass vigil, before erupting into a chant: “Joe must go.”
The mother of Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez blinked through tears as she told the audience: “We have another son in the Army. We do not trust Joe Biden with his life.”
In another memorable moment, former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro appeared at the convention just hours after he was released from federal prison, having completed a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. He received a hero’s welcome.
“I went to jail so you don’t have to,” he told the cheering crowd. “Consider me your wake-up call.”
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