On VP pick, time for Trump to take a mulligan
Donald Trump's choice of JD Vance as his vice presidential nominee has been met with criticism, as Vance's past comments about Trump and his "catless ladies" comment have raised concerns about his qualifications and ability to appeal to suburban women.
As any father would tell you, as much as we always try to support our kids, there are times when you just have to tell them: “Look, you know I love you, but on this matter – you’re just plain wrong.”
Many Republicans today are wishing Donald Trump had told Donald Jr. that when, reportedly, Junior personally persuaded Daddy to reject a handful of highly-qualified candidates and tap untested Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice presidential running mate.
What a mistake. Vance is the least impressive and most damaging vice presidential nominee since Sarah Palin. But at least Palin was lively, funny and capable of firing off a few, well-aimed zingers. Vance is as lively as roadkill.
Did anybody on the Trump campaign bother to check Vance’s acid comments about Donald Trump before giving him the green light? “I’m a Never-Trump guy,” Vance proudly proclaimed in 2016. That same year he repeatedly said he believed Trump had committed sexual abuse, asked out loud whether Trump was “America’s Hitler,” and penned an op-ed for the New York Times calling Trump “unfit for our nation’s highest office.” In 2017, he called Trump a “moral disaster” and “total fraud.”
Those previously reported comments gained new relevance last week when the New York Times revealed a trove of 90 emails and texts Vance sent to law school friends from 2014 to 2017, including this chilling message from September 2016: “The more white people feel like voting for Trump, the more black people will suffer. I really believe that.”
Then there’s Vance’s now infamous “cat ladies” comment. Running for Senate in 2021, Vance told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson what he thought was one of the biggest problems facing America: It’s being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” As examples, he cited Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
There’s so much wrong with that statement, it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, it’s simply not true. If the country’s being run by anybody, it’s being run by President Biden, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Chief Justice John Roberts – all of whom are married with children. And, course, Pete Buttigieg has two adopted sons and Kamala Harris is stepmother of her husband Doug’s son and daughter. But, secondly, why go out of your way to alienate around one-sixth of American women 40 to 44 who, for whatever reason, have never had children?
Even the country’s most powerful conservative media outlet, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, recoiled at Vance’s “catless ladies” comment, calling it “the sort of smart-aleck crack” that appeals to white men but turns off the suburban women Republicans need to win.
Despite growing complaints within his own party, however, Donald Trump continues to defend Vance, insisting he’s “doing a great job” and people love him. Actually, that’s not the case. Typically, as CNN’s Harry Enten reported last week, a vice presidential nominee enjoys a post-convention bump in the polls. Not JD Vance. Since 2000, the average bump is plus 19 points; so far, Vance has scored minus 6 points.
Trump made his first big mistake by nominating JD Vance. He’s making his second by keeping him on the ticket. On his pick for VP, it’s time for Trump to do what, reportedly, he often does on the golf course: Take a mulligan. Dump Vance. Pick somebody else.
Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”