Former President Donald Trump appears to have Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) high on his shortlist for vice president. But there's little he would actually bring to the table for him, argued David Firestone for The New York Times.
Choosing Vance — a former Never-Trump conservative venture capitalist turned hard-right populist who has called for deporting 20 million people from the United States — simply doubles down on all the weaknesses that have educated Republicans squeamish about voting for Trump in the first place, the report said.
"If you want to persuade the world that Trump is secretly deep and reasonable, then you have to demonstrate in your public actions some of those same qualities yourself. And Vance is falling far short on that score," wrote Firestone.
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A key example, he noted, is his reaction to efforts in Congress to restore the Trump administration's ban on machine gun-style bump stocks, recently overturned by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds.
"'We’re knocking out bump stocks,' Trump said in 2018, a year after the Las Vegas gunman used the device to kill 60 people and injure more than 400," the report said. "But ... when Senate Democrats said they wanted to [pass] a bill banning bump stocks, Vance declared the bill addressed a 'fake problem' and would 'end up just inhibiting the rights of law-abiding Americans.' Presumably, he thinks there’s some kind of right to own a machine gun that even Trump isn’t aware of."
Meanwhile, Vance is currently pushing a blockade of Biden administration judicial and prosecutorial nominees in revenge for Trump's felony conviction in New York — something Biden didn't even have anything to do with.
"These kinds of blockades are among the most juvenile and petulant tantrums an elected official can throw, putting Vance right there on the lowest level of the Senate alongside Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the author of another useless blockade and naturally an eager signer of this one," wrote Firestone. "That’s Vance’s real reputation in Washington, and Trump might want to think twice before choosing someone even more preposterous than he is."
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