Biden campaign claims Trump picked Vance because he’s OK with ‘breaking the law’ — despite prez pledge to lower temperature
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — President Biden’s re-election campaign chairwoman claimed Monday that Donald Trump picked Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate because Vance is OK with “breaking the law” — making the attack less than 24 hours after Biden called on Americans to “lower the temperature” after the former president was nearly assassinated.
“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
Dillon blasted Vance for supporting abortion restrictions and upper-income tax cuts, among other issues in the fiery attack, which was released moments after Trump announced that he had selected the “Hillbilly Elegy” author.
“Vance has a reputation as one of the most far-right extremists in Washington, endorsing a January 6 rally member for Congress and calling Marjorie Taylor Greene, who trafficks in antisemitism and division, ‘a friend’,” Dillon concluded.
The statement appeared despite Biden, 81, dedicating a rare Oval Office address Sunday night calling for political calm and civility.
“My fellow Americans, I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies,” Biden said in his third primetime Oval Office speech since assuming the presidency.
Republicans had criticized Biden’s campaign rhetoric in the days before the Saturday assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa., where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks wounded Trump and two other attendees and killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore, 50.
Who is Trump's VP pick, JD Vance?
- Trump announced Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his pick for vice president.
- The 39-year-old rose to prominence after writing his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” reflecting on his time growing up in a working-class Ohio family.
- Vance would be the second-youngest vice president to ever assume office if Trump was elected for another term.
- In 2020, Vance apologized to Trump for his previous criticism and came to be a supporter. He deleted his previous critical posts of Trump and met with the then-president about his Senate run.
- President Biden dismissed Vance as “a clone of Trump on the issues” following the announcement.
- He was first elected to the Senate in the 2022 midterm cycle.
Biden said last Monday that Democrats should put a metaphorical “bullseye” on Trump and tweeted Friday that the ex-president would be “a dictator” if he wins the Nov. 5 election.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced questions Monday about various other Biden attacks on Trump, including the incumbent’s statement Friday during an event in Michigan that Trump would return to power “over my dead body.”
“You heard directly from him, what he’s what he’s laid out, how he sees the future, how it’s important to be able to speak to different agendas. It is important to speak to someone’s record, someone’s character. Violence has no place in America,” Jean-Pierre said.