It’s been a turbulent few days—to say the least—for former president and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump, who survived an attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Seemingly undaunted, Trump took to Truth Social shortly after the incident to confirm that he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” and by Monday—the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—he was well enough to name Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential pick (also on Truth Social, of course).
Below, catch up on everything you need to know about Vance ahead of his confirmation at the RNC this week.
He’s the author of the 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy
Vance’s memoir about adhering to his family’s so-called “Appalachian values” while growing up in Kentucky and Ohio was a New York Times bestseller in August 2016 and January 2017. (The book was later made into an Oscar-nominated film.) While members of the conservative and liberal media alike lauded the book at the time of its release, Vance was also criticized for generalizing the Appalachian experience and favoring a “bootstrap” theory of self-improvement that puts the onus on the individual (rather than the society in which they live) to rise out of poverty.
He went to Yale
Despite his efforts to paint himself as a conservative voice for the American working class, Vance earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School—the same institution that counts right-leaning Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh among its esteemed alumni—in 2013. It was there that he met his wife, attorney Usha Vance, with whom he shares three children.
His views on abortion are (shocker) extremely anti-choice
Vance argued against the need for exceptions to abortion laws that would affect pregnant victims of rape and incest in 2021, saying: “Two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.”
He’s accused President Joe Biden of “opening up the floodgates to the border” in order to target his political opponents with fentanyl
“If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl?” asked Vance in 2022, adding: “It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him and opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do it.” Shortly after Vance made these comments, the Washington Post noted that deaths from opioids like fentanyl rose 60% under Trump and 15% in the first 12 months of Biden’s term, concluding: “Vance is putting the blame on Biden for a problem that got significantly worse under Trump.” (And scapegoating migrants to boot!)
Jennifer Lawrence isn’t a fan
Lawrence memorably christened Vance a “rich twat,” in her October 2022 Vogue cover interview, going on to qualify: “I mean, I’m a rich twat, but I’m not running for office pretending that I’m not.”