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JD Vance spoke on day three of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, where the junior senator from Ohio officially accepted his nomination as Donald Trump‘s vice presidential running mate.
After introducing himself to the nation, Vance squarely addressed the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. Four days ago, the former president was inches away from being killed or gravely wounded by a 20-year-old man with an automatic rifle who was shot dead at the scene by Secret Service snipers.
“As we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different instead of a day of celebration,” Vance said at the podium. “This could have been a day of heartache and mourning.”
Vance used his first primetime address as Trump’s running mate to share his story of his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, describing the town as “a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.”
“In small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war,” he added.
Vance was elected as a Republican senator from Ohio in 2022. He is the author of the 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which follows his working-class family and the abuse, poverty and addiction that afflicted them during Vance’s childhood.
Trump announced Vance as his vice presidential running mate on Monday, writing on Truth Social that the Ohio senator is the “person best suited to assume the position.”
At the RNC, Vance also criticized President Joe Biden for supporting NAFTA, the trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, while he was in Congress, which made the crowd at one point chant, “Joe must go!”
“Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington as long as I’ve been alive,” Vance, 39, said of the 81-year-old president. “For half a century he’s been a champion of every single policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer.”
“We need a leader who fights for the people who built this country,” Vance later said of Trump. “We need a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and non-union alike. A leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations but will stand up for American companies and American industry. A leader who rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ Green New scam and fights to bring back our great American factories.”
At the end of his speech, Vance admitted that he and his fellow Republicans might not “agree on every issue.”
“We may disagree from time to time about how best to reinvigorate American industry and renew American family,” he said. “That’s fine. In fact, it’s more than fine; it’s good. But never forget that the reason why this united Republican Party exists, why we do this, why we care about those great ideas and this great history is that we want this nation to thrive for centuries to come.”
Vance then directly addressed Trump, saying, “Mr. President, I will never take for granted the trust you have put in me.”
He added, “To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”
