MILWAUKEE — Republicans celebrated Ohio Senator JD Vance’s nomination for vice president at the Republican National Convention on Monday, while Democrats sharply criticized his opposition to abortion rights, calling him inexperienced and a “clone” of Donald Trump.
Reactions poured in from all corners of American politics when GOP delegates at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, officially nominated Vance just hours after Trump. announced his election earlier in the day.
President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, told reporters there was no difference between Trump and Vance.
“A clone of Trump on the issues,” said Biden. “I see no difference.”
The reactions of Republicans and Trump’s family members were completely different.
Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, who officially nominated Vance at the RNC convention, said the office of vice president is “an office of sacred trust.”
“The man who accepts this nomination accepts the tremendous responsibility of providing wise counsel to the President, representing America abroad, leading the Senate and being ready at all times to lead our nation,” Husted said. “Such a man must have at his heart an attitude of putting America first.”
Nomination moment
Vance stood on the arena floor with his wife, Usha Vance, at his side as Husted delivered the official nomination speech.
Photos of Vance were shown on screens in the huge arena throughout the speech.
Bernie Moreno, the Republican candidate seeking to unseat Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in November, made the motion to nominate Vance, which passed unanimously by majority vote.
“For JD Vance, ‘America First’ is not just a slogan. It is his guiding light,” said Moreno. “He has followed it in every moment of his life and career. He knows what it is like to live in poverty and to be forgotten by the politicians in Washington. He is committed to ensuring that no American will ever be forgotten again.”
Florida Rep. Kat Cammack said during a brief interview with States Newsroom at the RNC convention that Vance brings “a lot of enthusiasm” to the candidacy, in part because “the base loves him.”
“We now have the opportunity to move forward and achieve the goal,” Cammack said.
Donald Trump Jr. spoke to reporters at the Fiserv Forum to reject criticism that Vance does not have enough legislative experience after less than two years in Congress.
“My father had no political experience whatsoever. He had no experience whatsoever in the Middle East, in the largest labor economy in the world, with incredible prosperity for all,” Trump Jr. said. “If experience is a marker for politics in Washington, DC, it is a bad one.”
Montana Senator Steve Daines, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, congratulated Vance in a statement, saying Trump made a “great choice” and Vance has “a connection with the working-class voters we need to win this election.”
Some of the Republicans who are against Trump’s pick list The reactions to the vice-presidential election were positive.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio posted “#TrumpVance2024!!!”, but others who were not selected did not immediately respond.
Biden campaign cites stance on abortion
The Biden team organized a conference call with reporters on Monday afternoon after Trump announced that Vance would be his vice presidential running mate.
Campaign representatives, joined by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and abortion rights activists, condemned Vance’s record and accused him of Support for abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest.
They also warned that Vance would aid the Trump administration support conservative policy ideas, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 roadmap – a current focus of the Biden campaign.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden campaign manager, told reporters that “Vance clearly won Trump’s lottery by passing his MAGA litmus test with flying colors.”
“You know, Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate because he will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t do on January 6th: bend over backwards to support Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and certainly regardless of the harm to the American people,” O’Malley Dillon said, referring to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, that delayed the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“As Trump and Vance now enter the general election, they are running against the Biden-Harris ticket, and I will take that matchup any day of the week and twice on Sunday,” O’Malley Dillon said, appearing to acknowledge the campaign’s defense of Biden in recent weeks as prominent donors and Democrats called for Biden. drop out of the race after his faint debate performance.
The campaign team announced that Vice President Kamala Harris has already accepted CBS’s invitation to a vice presidential debate and is ready to run against Vance.
“The vice president will take it to JD Vance,” Warren said on the call. “She’s strong, she knows what she’s talking about, and she’s not giving an inch.”
The Democratic National Committee issued a statement Monday afternoon saying that November is “the most consequential election of our lifetime, and with Donald Trump’s decision today to put JD Vance on the Republican ticket, the stakes of this election have become even higher.”
“JD Vance embodies MAGA – with an out-of-touch, extreme agenda and plans to help Trump impose his ‘Project 2025’ agenda on the American people,” said DNC Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison.
“Let’s be clear: a Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms and our future,” Harrison later continued in the statement.
The National Women’s Law Center Action Fund commented on Trump’s election and called Vance an “extremist.”
“Women and girls deserve to live in a country where they are free to make their own choices and live without fear,” Fatima Goss Graves, president of the Action Fund, said in the statement. “That’s why we must work to prevent Donald Trump and JD Vance from gaining the power to impose a national abortion ban and impose their radical MAGA agenda on the rest of us.”
