On Wednesday night, Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance addressed Republican supporters at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, giving his first official speech as he runs as vice presidential candidate alongside former President Donald Trump.
Notably, and perhaps strategically, Vance’s speech at the convention included no mention of his anti-abortion or Christian nationalist views.
Though the evening’s meeting was officially about foreign policy, Vance, who was named Trump’s running mate earlier this week, spoke about a range of issues. Many of his assertions, primarily aimed at the Biden administration, were misleading or patently false, while other remarks were less than nuanced.
During his speech, Vance made a false anti-immigrant argument that illegal immigrants are driving up housing costs, prompting chants of “send them back” from the Republican National Convention audience, and in another speech he praised his spouse’s parents, who immigrated to the US decades ago.
Vance then demanded that “newcomers” who come to the U.S. adhere to an undefined standard of Americanism: “When America accepts newcomers into the American family, it accepts them on our terms,” he said.
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The Republican National Committee is following President Trump’s lead and hiding its anti-abortion agenda behind a veneer of moderation.
Vance also falsely claimed the Biden administration was moving the United States away from “energy independence” when in fact U.S. oil production, which is rapidly accelerating the global climate crisis, has never been higher than under President Joe Biden.
On the same topic, Vance criticized Biden’s push to create more green energy jobs in the future, calling the president’s plan to fund them a “green new scam.” Biden has created more than 250,000 green energy jobs so far during his term.
In a brief aside during his speech, Vance promoted dangerous gun practices, praising his grandmother for keeping loaded guns in an unlocked part of the house (notably, unintentional gun deaths are the leading cause of death among children in the United States).
Vance also used the speech to rewrite history, claiming that Trump opposed the Iraq War and Biden supported it, when in fact both Biden and Trump openly supported it when it began, only changing their positions years later after public opinion had turned against the occupation.
Vance’s radical stance on abortion was noticeably absent from the platform, even though he has repeatedly called for a federal abortion ban while running for the Senate in 2022.
“I would certainly like to see abortion illegal nationwide,” Vance said in a radio interview at the time, adding that he understood the far-right argument that such a ban was necessary to prevent residents of states with strict abortion restrictions from crossing state lines to access the procedure.
Like other Republicans, including Donald Trump, Vance appears to be strategically burying his unpopular anti-abortion policies in the American public. In fact, his website, where he once called for the “total abolition of abortion,” appeared to have been removed from the internet as of Wednesday morning.
Overall, Vance’s speech emphasized his working-class childhood while ignoring his ties to billionaires like Peter Thiel, who has long supported Vance financially both in the private sector and in his Senate campaigns. Vance also toned down his usually over-the-top MAGA-esque rhetoric, and perhaps for good reason: most Americans currently know very little about him, and revealing the “real” J.D. Vance could give voters the impression that he’s a Donald Trump lookalike.
In fact, recent polls show that more voters have an unfavorable than favorable view of the Republican vice presidential nominee, and most voters admit to knowing very little about him. An Economist/YouGov poll released the same day Vance spoke found that only 24% of registered voters have a favorable view of him, while 35% have an unfavorable view. Nearly half of voters (48%) say they don’t know enough about him to form an opinion.
Political commentators said Vance’s speech was largely successful in hiding who he is from the American public.
“He put a very friendly face on a very disturbing agenda,” said CNN’s Van Jones.
“Vance is known for his fierce defense of Trump on television, and tonight’s speech was not intended to showcase that side of his political persona,” said Jess Bidgood of The New York Times.
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