But it wasn’t always this way.
So far, the candidates have attacked Trump’s character and policies, criticizing him in harsh, sometimes personal terms. With Trump on the brink of announcing his candidacy, the candidates reflect a major shift in the party among aspiring Republicans since 2016. Recognizing Trump’s enduring advantage, many, including prominent former critics, have backed him.
Some observers see their actions as a cynical ploy to climb the political ladder, while others dismiss them as a meaningless bygone era.
“Frankly, you’d be very hard pressed to find a Republican leader who hasn’t followed that path,” said former Rep. David Jolly, a former Republican critic and former Republican Party member. “That doesn’t exempt them from criticism, because it was clear then, and it’s clear now, that the people that Trump nominates for vice president are following their own political agendas, not his own political beliefs.”
Mr. Trump has a habit of welcoming former foes back to his loyalty, and his allies and advisers dismissed the old criticism as typical political tactics. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former Trump ally, dismissed concerns about criticism of a potential running mate, arguing that Mr. Trump should focus on picking someone who will help broaden his base.
“In politics, people attack each other,” Graham said. “Politics is a sport unto itself.”
Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller likened the accusation to a heated moment between President Biden and Vice President Harris during their 2020 Democratic presidential nomination contest. During the second debate, Harris noted that Biden had spoken fondly of his relationship with a segregationist senator and opposed aspects of mandatory busing to end school desegregation, but before disclaiming that she was accusing Biden of being a racist.
“By comparison, President Trump and his running mate would be much more congenial,” Miller said.
Trump supporters also point out that the vice presidential candidates have proven their loyalty by defending him on television and at campaign events and by raising funds for him. Some of them would be considered potential administration officials even if they were not Trump’s running mate. But their past comments could be used against the Democrats, who have suggested a strategy of emphasizing that the vice presidential candidates will follow Trump’s demands and policies.
Vance’s fiercest attacks on Trump came during media interviews promoting his 2016 autobiography, “Hillbilly Elegy.” Vance called himself a “Never-Trumpist” and said he did not vote for Trump in 2016. In an August 2016 New York Times op-ed headlined “Why Trump’s anti-war message resonates with white America,” Vance wrote that “Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”
“There are certainly underlying elements of racism and xenophobia in support for Donald Trump,” he told PBS’s Judy Woodruff in September 2016, when asked about Hillary Clinton’s comment that half of Trump’s supporters belonged to a “group of deplorables.” “But,” he added, “a lot of these people are really hard-working people who are struggling with really important issues.”
Vance also sent messages that year to his law school roommate, Josh McLaughlin, who spoke publicly about them, in which Vance said he was “varying between thinking Trump was a cynical jerk like Nixon but not as bad (and maybe even helpful) and thinking he was the American Hitler,” according to screenshots McLaughlin shared on social media in 2022, when Vance was running for the Ohio Senate.
McLaurin, now a Georgia Democrat, warned in an interview that Vance could be Trump’s “most dangerous” choice, as someone who would double down on Trump’s harsh criticism and retaliation, noting that Vance’s ability to understand and empathize with the anger of the MAGA base was a skill he used to get elected and run Trump’s campaign.
He said Vance would likely stoke partisanship and contempt for the other side, compared with Mike Pence, Trump’s first-term vice president who helped certify Biden’s 2020 election victory despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the results.
“He has this anger that he wants to justify,” McLoughlin said.
Vance had previously said his previous critical comments about Trump no longer reflected his views of the president, and his Senate campaign at the time dismissed his messages to McLaurin as old news.
Vance won Trump’s endorsement for the 2022 Senate race, which proved decisive in the primary. He also became close with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who said he shares Trump’s populist appeal and thinks he is a competent president. He has since become a spokesman for the Trump campaign, appearing with Trump outside the New York courthouse where Trump was convicted of plotting to illegally influence the 2016 election and helping organize a fundraiser with tech entrepreneur David Sachs.
“Like many other elite conservatives and elite liberals, I was so focused on Trump’s stylistic elements that I never noticed that he was offering fundamentally very different proposals on foreign policy, trade and immigration,” Vance told The New York Times’ Ross Douthat last month, adding that he voted for Trump in 2020.
In a statement, Donald Trump Jr. defended his friend’s earlier comments, saying articles had already been written about Vance’s criticisms and that it was “embarrassing that news organizations continue to report it over and over as if it were breaking news.”
“Trust me, we’ve all been in discussions with him for a long time, and we’re now past all of this and have 100% confidence that JD is an America First man through and through,” Trump’s son said in a statement. “Objectively speaking, no one in the Senate has ever been a stronger supporter of my father.”
Similarly, Rubio became one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the Senate after personally attacking him in 2016 over his business dealings and other issues. Before dropping out of that race and endorsing Trump, Rubio called him a “con man” who was dividing the Republican Party.
The concern is even more significant for some voters, as Rubio has previously questioned whether Trump would be up to the task given his age, 70 months into the election.
“If elected, he’ll be the oldest president in history, and he’ll only have about eight years in office, so that worries me,” Rubio said of Trump in 2016.
Trump did not hold back in his criticism of Rubio in 2016, frequently calling him “Little Marco” and mocking him as a “disaster for Florida” and that “a dog catcher should never be elected.”
Rubio later denied making any criticism of Trump and sided with him in the general election. He helped shape the Trump administration’s Latin American policy and represented Trump in Latino voters and in Florida.
“When he became president, we worked together on a lot of things that were important to the country and important to me,” Rubio told The Washington Post in an interview. “We had a very good working relationship. I didn’t know him when I ran in 2016, I didn’t know him as a person.”
Of the three, Burgum has been the least publicly aggressive in attacking Trump and has avoided speaking about him during his brief stint in the Republican primary (he endorsed Trump on the eve of the Iowa caucuses), but the tech entrepreneur said last July that he would not do business with Trump.
“I think it’s important to be judged by the people you hang out with,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd.
Asked about that answer, Burgum said in a Fox News interview in May that he didn’t know Trump personally when he was governor, but had become closer to him since joining the campaign.
“I had the opportunity to meet him and see the real person and understand his character, which is different than the media portrays him to be,” Burgum said. “I’ve known CEOs my whole life, and there’s no CEO in America who works harder than him.”
