Washington.- US President Joe Biden has called JD Vance “a clone” of his running mate Donald Trump as Democrats sought to quickly define the Ohio senator for voters, casting doubt on his independence and populist credentials.
“He’s a Trump clone on the issues,” Biden told reporters Monday as he boarded Air Force One before flying to Las Vegas.
“I don’t see any difference,” he said.
In a separate social media post, Biden said that while Trump’s running mate “talks a lot about working people,” Vance and the former president want to raise taxes on middle-class families while pushing for more tax cuts for the wealthy.
The president’s comments were just one part of an all-out offensive launched by his campaign after Trump’s pick was announced Monday morning, as aides and allies seek to define Vance, who is largely unknown to many voters beyond “Hillbilly Elegy,” his memoir of growing up poor in the Rust Belt that spurred a national discussion about the white working class.
Democrats are eager to paint the venture capitalist-turned-senator as subservient to both Trump and the establishment, in an attempt to curb the populist appeal he has cultivated during his career in Washington. Vance, 39, also marks a potential generational shift for Republicans, being decades younger than both Trump, 78, and Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in U.S. history.
“Trump’s running mate is great news for the wealthiest Americans,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, told reporters on a conference call on Monday.
“Under Trump-Vance, cuts to Social Security and Medicare will fall on seniors like an avalanche.”
Trump notably distanced himself from his last running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence, over his refusal to block the certification of Biden’s election victory. Protesters in the mob of Trump supporters who marched to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
That episode is expected to embolden Democrats’ efforts to paint Vance as an extremist as they hope to overturn an election in which they are trailing in opinion polls.
In a statement, Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said Trump chose Vance because he “will do what Mike Pence failed to do on January 6th: do everything in his power to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people.”
O’Malley Dillon said Vance “will make it his mission to enact Trump’s Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families,” citing a plan for the former president’s return to power being crafted by some of his closest allies that calls for packing federal agencies with loyalists and enacting socially conservative policies.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement that Vance “defended and enabled Trump’s worst policies for years.”
“Let’s be clear: a Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms and our future,” he said.
Harris challenges him to debate
Warren said current Vice President Kamala Harris was eager to debate the new Republican pick. Biden’s campaign has already accepted a proposal from CBS News for a possible debate, while Trump has sought to foster a debate on the more conservative Fox News.
“I’ve known her for over 15 years, as she’s been in all kinds of fights on behalf of working families,” Warren said.
“He doesn’t give an inch and has the best argument.”
Harris reached out to Vance and left a message congratulating him on his selection and encouraging him to accept the CBS News debate, a Biden campaign official said.
Trump said he had chosen Vance on Monday morning as the Republican National Convention began in Milwaukee, ending weeks of speculation as the former president sought to generate intrigue and suspense around his choice of running mate.
Trump compared the process to his former television show, The Apprentice, during a weekslong decision-making process in which potential challengers jockeyed for influence by fundraising for the president and appearing at his side, including at his Manhattan trial.
Vance’s selection comes just two days after Trump survived a failed assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was wounded after a bullet grazed his ear. That incident was a sobering reminder of the importance of the vice president, who would take over the duties of the Oval Office if the president were killed or unable to fulfill his role.
Shortly after the rally, Vance was one of several Republicans who blamed the rhetoric of Biden and Democrats for the assassination attempt.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance wrote in a post on X.
“That rhetoric led directly to the attempted assassination of President Trump.”
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