JD Vance: The voice who warned about Trump is now POTUS' increasingly trusted Man Friday
Donald Trump
's sweeping 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' a 940-page legislative colossus featuring vast tax cuts and spending reductions, scraped through by the thinnest of margins.
As reported by the Associated Press, the final tally was 50–50. The deadlock was broken by Vice President
JD Vance
's decisive 'yay' vote.
Yes — that JD Vance.
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Undo
The man who, as Reuters noted in November 2024, once publicly branded Trump 'reprehensible' and 'an idiot,' and privately compared him to Adolf Hitler, has been a key ally for Trump.
JD Vance, now the 50th Vice President of the United States, stands as arguably the most pivotal figure in pushing Trump's legislative priorities across the finish line.
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'The big not-so-beautiful bill has passed,' Senator Rand Paul quipped after the vote, according to the Associated Press, still reeling from the overnight showdown. Paul, along with fellow Republicans Thom Tillis (North Carolina) and Susan Collins (Maine), joined all Democrats in opposing the bill.
Also Read:
Three Republican senators defy Trump, vote against his ambitious 'big, beautiful bill': Who are they?
Inside Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'
The Senate's version of the bill makes substantial changes to tax and spending policy. According to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis:
It includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, largely aimed at making Trump's 2017 tax rates permanent, which are otherwise set to expire by year-end.
It introduces new breaks, including eliminating taxes on tips, a key Trump campaign promise.
It proposes rolling back billions in green energy tax credits, a move that Democrats warn will gut the renewable energy sector and stall investments in wind and solar nationwide.
It mandates $1.2 trillion in spending reductions, tightening access to Medicaid and food stamps. Work requirements for able-bodied adults, including some parents and older Americans, would be introduced. Changes in how the federal government reimburses states could limit access to safety-net programmes.
As per the CBO, these changes could leave an estimated 11.8 million more Americans uninsured by 2034 and raise the federal deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade.
Additionally, the bill allocates $350 billion for border and national security, including deportation initiatives, partially funded by new fees levied on immigrants, as outlined by the Associated Press.
The House is expected to clash with the Senate over changes to Medicaid. Speaker Mike Johnson has already warned the Senate not to stray too far from the version his chamber previously passed, but the clock is ticking to meet Trump's July 4 deadline.
Also Read:
Big Beautiful Bill: After narrow Senate passage, Trump's marquee bill faces resistance in the House
One tie. One guy. One big shift.
That this bill passed at all is due, in no small part, to JD Vance.
His journey from Trump antagonist to vice-presidential loyalist is one of the most remarkable transformations in recent political memory.
According to CNN, during the 2016 election cycle, Vance texted a former Yale Law School roommate saying that he went back and forth between thinking Trump was a cynical figure like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad and might even prove useful, or that he was America's Hitler.
He called Trump a 'total fraud' in public and even likened his influence on America to 'cultural heroin,' according to Time Magazine.
Yet, by 2024, that same JD Vance was tapped to be Trump's running mate. As Reuters reported at the time, his selection reflected a full-circle moment, from vocal critic to loyalist lieutenant.
Hillbilly to high office
Born into an impoverished household in southern Ohio, Vance's backstory has always been central to his political narrative. Sky News noted how he often speaks about his upbringing in speeches to connect with blue-collar voters.
His mother, according to The Times of India, struggled with opioid addiction, which escalated to heroin use, a personal trauma that shaped much of his public identity.
That upbringing was the subject of his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. The book topped The New York Times bestseller list and made Vance a breakout star, a voice for white working-class voters and Appalachian communities. As Times Now wrote in November 2024, Hillbilly Elegy 'evolved into a cultural phenomenon' that catapulted Vance into the political spotlight.
As Reuters noted, Vance's Rust Belt roots, in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, made him a key figure in winning over working-class white voters, especially those without college degrees, a core MAGA demographic.
The MAGA makeover
Despite Vance's once-vocal criticisms, his shift wasn't sudden. In a New York Times interview (June 2025), he said there was no 'Eureka' moment, but rather a slow realisation that he had misunderstood Trump.
'I allowed myself to focus so much on the stylistic element of Trump that I completely ignored the way in which he substantively was offering something very different on foreign policy, on trade, on immigration,' Vance told the Times.
By the time he launched his Senate bid in 2022, Vance was publicly downplaying the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot and aligning with Trump's unfounded claims of a stolen election. That shift helped him win Trump's endorsement, and the Senate seat.
Building Trumpworld cred
Vance's rise in Trump's political orbit coincided with growing ties to Donald Trump Jr., according to Reuters. Trump reportedly admired Vance's 2022 stance against U.S. aid to Ukraine, a view that aligned with MAGA isolationism.
At the same time, he increasingly aligned himself with Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020. Vance repeatedly stated that the election had 'serious problems,' carefully stopping short of directly saying Trump had won but leaving little doubt about where his sympathies lay.
'If I had been vice president, I would not have certified the results,' he told supporters, adding that he would have 'asked the states to send alternate electors,' as reported by Al Jazeera and The Times of India in October 2024.
Vance also became instrumental in donor outreach. As Reuters revealed, he played a key role in organising a Bay Area fundraiser in June 2024 with venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, a crucial event for Trump's Silicon Valley fundraising.
His early endorsement of Trump in January 2023, before any other potential vice-presidential contenders had stepped up, signalled full alignment.
The cat-lady theorist grows up
As Reuters reported, Vance's early public appearances were rocky. He drew backlash for controversial remarks, including calling childless women 'cat ladies' in 2021 and promoting a conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio, a claim Trump would later repeat during a debate with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
But Vance eventually displayed more polish. In a televised 2024 debate with Democrat Tim Walz, he adopted a measured tone and demonstrated more discipline than even Trump at times. 'Turned out to be a good choice,' Trump said afterward, as quoted by Reuters.
Ride-or-die Republicanism
As a sitting vice president, Vance has continued to echo Trump's key positions:
He has vigorously defended Trump's tariff policies. In April 2025, on Fox & Friends, he praised the administration's 50% tariffs on the EU, saying 'we needed a big change.' His support was also reported by Sky News and The Wall Street Journal.
He has publicly declared that, had he been vice president in 2020, he 'would not have certified the results,' according to Al Jazeera and The Times of India (October 2024).
According to the White House's 'Trump–Vance Administration Priorities' document, Vance backs strong immigration restrictions, including ending asylum access for illegal border crossers, reinstating the 'Remain in Mexico' policy, and using the military for border security. He also supports designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organisations.
In 2021, as reported by Time Magazine, Vance reportedly advised Trump to fire civil servants and replace them with loyal MAGA ideologues, laying the groundwork for what has become a defining goal of
Project 2025
.
The abortion pivot and the X-factor feud
Vance's stance on abortion has also evolved.
As per PolitiFact and Democrats.org, in 2021 he suggested that even rape and incest victims should carry pregnancies to term, stating, 'Two wrongs don't make a right.'
But by 2025, he had embraced a softer tone. America Magazine had earlier this year reported that Vance now supports access to the abortion pill mifepristone. This matches Trump's courtroom defence of the drug, despite pressure from anti-abortion conservatives. However, this position exists alongside Project 2025, a conservative blueprint that could still restrict mifepristone via administrative regulation, as per
ReproductiveFreedomforAll.org
.
Then came the Elon Musk feud. In June 2025, Musk attacked Trump's economic bill on X, calling it a 'disgusting abomination,' and made a now-deleted claim that Trump appeared in the Epstein files, as reported by The Times of India.
While many initially described Vance's response as a 'calculated silence,' he later sided publicly with Trump. 'President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I'm proud to stand beside him,' he posted on X, according to TOI.
On Theo Von's This Past Weekend podcast, Hindustan Times reported, Vance called Musk's actions 'a huge mistake,' but expressed hope that the Tesla CEO would 'come back into the fold.'
Echo. Not voice?
Vance's journey from Hillbilly Elegy to the Senate floor has drawn admiration, cynicism, and accusations of opportunism.
'What you see is some really profound opportunism,' said David Niven, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati and former speechwriter for two Democratic governors, in comments to Reuters.
Still, the result is undeniable: Vance is now one of the most powerful voices in Republican politics. Or, as Niven put it, not a voice, but 'an echo to Trump.'
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Events were modest, such as a 2023 project inviting Americans to mail in loose-leaf tea that could be thrown into Boston Harbor during a Boston Tea Party re-enactment. An America250 event at the Library of Congress in 2021. Rios saw Trump's election as an opportunity to reset the project for the homestretch. After November's election, she sent Trump and first lady Melania Trump a memo with recommendations for making America250 a signature project for the new administration, according to the organization's annual report. 'I am very supportive of President Trump's participation in our 250th celebrations, as I would be for any president who has the same level of commitment that he has," Rios said in an interview, adding the commission had a mandate to be bipartisan. 'We've always intended to make space at the table for whoever was going to win the November election." Rios sits on the board of Ripple Labs, a crypto company that made the second-largest donation to Trump's inaugural celebration, $4.9 million. Rios said there wasn't a connection to the commission's work. Recognizing there needed to be Trump-affiliated advisers working with America250, Rios asked LaCivita to join as a special adviser, and a wave of Trump allies came aboard. Trump announced Justin Caporale, who orchestrated Trump's 2024 rallies, would work on production for America250 events. Caporale's production company, Event Strategies, was a contractor for the recent U.S. Army parade in Washington. Event Strategies was also listed on paperwork for the Stop the Steal rally ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Ari Abergel, a 25-year-old former Fox News producer who briefly served as a spokesperson for first lady Melania Trump, was tapped by the president to be executive director of the commission. 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At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, commission leaders said they were unhappy with unilateral changes Abergel had made to programming the commission had already approved, an America250 official said, adding the agency is working to get the programming back on track as approved by the commission. 'President Trump is the King of Patriotism. And when it comes to celebrating America, nobody goes bigger," said Abergel in a statement. 'A few disgruntled individuals won't stop us from making America250 the most patriotic celebration in American history." While Rios has been enthusiastic about the Trump administration's support for the celebrations and has been praised by Trump's advisers for her collaboration, some of Trump's allies have viewed the commission and Rios, a Democrat, with suspicion. Sen. 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Trump's cabinet—in particular Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Burgum—are also involved in the planning of Task Force 250 events. The White House and America250 coordinated on the Army 250th Parade in Washington last month, where Trump donors were offered VIP packages for the parade and coming events. Spectators at the Army parade on June 14. 'The president's vision of having the greatest birthday celebration in American history will not be compromised or impeded by any corner," the official said. 'Right now, there's no impediment for getting things done at the moment, and hopefully there won't be." The White House has been working on plans to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Other ideas under consideration include a 1776 Presidential Award for students showing knowledge of history, a Patriot Games sports competition for student athletes and a 'Freedom Plane" similar to the 'Freedom Train" that crossed the nation with historical documents and memorabilia in celebration of America's Bicentennial. Administration officials are also considering organizing a ball drop in Times Square and said it would mark the first time a ball would drop in the famous New York tourist destination not on New Year's Eve. The White House is partnering with private organizations to create some of the materials and programming for the events, including PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that describes its mission as promoting 'liberty, limited government and Judeo-Christian principles" through short videos, telling a story of achievement from 'Moses to Trump," as co-founder Allen Estrin put it. The White House also worked with Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College, a private, Christian, conservative liberal-arts college, and Wilfred McClay, a historian there, to produce a video lecture series called 'The Story of America" that appears on the White House website. Arnn has been critical of progressive influence on the media, other universities and corporate America. The administration has also discussed partnering with conservative influencers and commentators on programming. 'President Trump understands the world is watching," Burgum said. 'People are like, oh, democracy is fragile. No, democracy is quite resilient, and the democracy of the United States has stood the test of time and is now here. We are not in decline, we are in ascendance." Write to Meridith McGraw at and Jess Bravin at
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