Vice President JD Vance knew the assignment, and he likely knew how that assignment would go. Promoting his new book in an interview on “The View,” whose co-hosts are no fans of Donald Trump, he would have to defend the president’s gaffes and policy mistakes, while not looking too thirsty to replace the president come 2028.
Vance performed well, as he usually does in TV interviews. But he also revealed the awkward position in which he finds himself — as does just about every other Republican who will run for president in two years. Succeeding a president from your own party is hard enough; being Trump’s vice president makes it harder.
The vice president has had plenty of practice being confronted with his criticisms of the president, and the answer he gave was quite revealing.
Although Vance, like many Republicans, was critical of Trump when he first ran for president, Trump’s election victory in 2016 made Vance’s career. It was a shock to American politics and culture, and people went looking for someone who could explain what happened. Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy” was published in the middle of the 2016 campaign, and became a bestseller.
Vance’s account of his dysfunctional family and chaotic upbringing, mixed with some dime-store sociology of Appalachia, was quickly embraced as a kind of Rosetta Stone to understand the disgruntled white people who helped elect Trump. The fact that the book features more than a little contempt for the people Vance grew up with didn’t hurt its appeal to liberals.
At the time, in both private and public, Vance didn’t hold back in his scorn for Trump. He called him “unfit for the presidency” and “an idiot.” In a Facebook chat that later became public, Vance worried that Trump could turn out to be “America’s Hitler.” It’s a remark that has followed him to this day.
On “The View,” co-host Sara Haines brought up a tweet Vance sent after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape: “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us. When we apologize for this man, lord help us.” Co-host Joy Behar asked him what changed his mind about Trump. The vice president has had plenty of practice being confronted with his criticism of the president, and the answer he gave was quite revealing: He pivoted.
“When you make predictions,” he said, “and those predictions turn out to be false, you gotta ask yourself: What made me wrong about that? What did I not understand or appreciate?” And what did Vance get wrong? “For example, I said that Donald Trump’s economic policies would not lead to wage growth. They did, in the first term. That was actually a major, major thing.”
Trump may be a despicable and dangerous figure, but when Vance saw that he could ride Trump to power, he jumped aboard eagerly.
Oh, so that was it — wage growth! A mere matter of policy detail and economic performance. Right. As Haines pointed out, the tweet “wasn’t about policy,” but a more fundamental question: “what Christians were willing to excuse,” she said. “And that’s the part I can’t get past. What are you willing to excuse in the name of power?” At this, Vance blamed the media, claiming “many of the things people said about [Trump] weren’t actually true.”
What Vance can’t say — what no Republican can say — is that he discovered that Trump is actually a man of virtue for whom anyone would be proud to work. He can’t praise Trump’s honesty, his integrity, his kindness or his moral center. We all know that Trump is essentially a walking collection of character flaws; those who follow him do so either because they like what he does in spite of his flaws, or because they don’t see those traits as flaws in the first place. Vance made a moral judgment that Trump was a despicable and dangerous figure, but when he saw that he could ride Trump to power, he jumped aboard eagerly.
The level of loyalty Trump demands of his senior advisers goes far beyond policy — and it will be a cloud hovering over not only Vance, but also Secretary of State Marco Rubio and almost any prominent Republican who runs for president in 2028. It’s more than just being part of the Trump administration, though that alone is a stain even the most junior political appointee should never be allowed to outlive. Trump requires a kind of performative fealty usually only seen in the most brutal personalist dictatorships, like the ones in North Korea or Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Think of those embarrassing Cabinet meetings where Vance, Rubio and the rest of the group have to offer comically over-the-top praise of the president. No one at the table emerges with their dignity intact. Working for Trump also means you have to publicly justify the dumbest decisions and repeat the most ridiculous lies. Numerous leaks, perhaps originating with Vance himself, suggest that he was skeptical of the Iran war, but as Trump’s vice president he will have to defend the war (and any resulting deal) if he runs for president. And since Trump never misspeaks or misleads, whatever he says must be repeated and justified, no matter how dishonest or self-contradictory. Because Trump is a liar, he makes liars of everyone who works for him.
That creates an ongoing character test for Vance, Rubio and to a large degree every Republican politician, one almost all of them have failed. The very fact that Vance and Rubio haven’t been fired is proof of how compromised they are; rather than elevating them, their powerful jobs have made them smaller and more contemptible.
It’s especially difficult for a vice president to present themselves for the top job; four or eight years as second fiddle doesn’t make you look larger in the eyes of a public that is likely tired of your boss. It’s why, of the 22 vice presidents who subsequently ran for president, only six succeeded. Other nominees hoping to follow an incumbent president of their party face similar hurdles. Trump’s second term has only exacerbated these dynamics. Even as his poll numbers have sunk, he has made Republicans do and say terrible things, and the whole country has watched as their moral corruption progressed. No matter how slick Vance’s answers are, every voter can see who he is and what he has become.
Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture.