Democrats were quick to seize on Donald Trump’s decision to name as his running mate JD Vance, the hard-right Ohio senator whose past opposition to the former president and Republican nominee included calling him “America’s Hitler”.
A Democratic party statement said: “Donald Trump just picked JD Vance as his running mate. Vance is an ultra-Maga extremist who’s ready to help Trump pass his Project 2025 agenda. Stop Trump-Vance. Vote Biden-Harris.”
Vance has praised Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for a second Trump term.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the effort, which is co-ordinated by the Heritage Foundation. Democrats are seeking to tie him to it.
Elsewhere on Monday, Robert Garcia, a California congressman, called Vance “an extremist with views that are completely outside the mainstream” and said on X: “The fact that he immediately politicised the assassination attempt against former President Trump and blamed Democrats is shameful. There couldn’t be a more irresponsible pick.”
On Saturday, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump was shot in the ear while one person was killed and two injured.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Vance claimed Democratic campaign rhetoric “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination”.
The gunman’s motive has not yet been determined.
Young Democrats of America, a campaign group, said Vance had “pushed the country’s most dangerous rhetoric and will continue to attack our freedoms as vice-president.
“His radical attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Bipoc Americans, and reproductive healthcare are only getting started.”
The Biden-Harris rapid response team pointed to remarks in which Vance called no-fault divorce “one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace”, because it allowed people to “shift spouses like they change their underwear”.
“JD Vance says women should stay in violent marriages ‘for the sake of their kids’,” a Biden-Harris tweet said.
