**DISCLAIMER: This article was first published in July of 2024**
Donald Trump’s controversial 2024 VP running mate pick, J.D. Vance, can’t seem to escape his past, no matter how hard he tries.
As if the “childless cat ladies” comments, and the extremist abortion stance, and the “America’s Hitler” text messages weren’t already bad enough for the far-Right Ohio Senator and Trump 2024 running mate, one of Vance’s former classmates has now come forward with a trove of damning past emails and text messages from the GOP VP nominee, in which Vance refers to his new boss as a ” morally reprehensible human being.”
Sofia Nelson, a transgender former friend and Yale Law School classmate of Vance, has now shared a staggering 90-plus emails and text messages related to the 2024 Republican VP nominee with the New York Times.
The leaked correspondence serves to shed even more light on how Vance made the drastic shift from a vehement opponent of Donald Trump, to running on his coattails for the highest office in the nation.
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Nelson explained that she and Vance were actually once close friends, but inevitably had a falling out in 2021 when J.D. threw his support behind Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors, as Nelson herself is transgender.
In one email hailing from 2015, Nelson writes to Vance about a mutual friend who wore a hijab but no longer felt safe in doing so, due to the drastically hateful platforms Donald Trump was running on at the time. Vance replied to that email calling Trump a demagogue.
“I’m obviously outraged at Trump’s rhetoric, and I worry most of all about how welcome Muslim citizens feel in their own country,” Vance wrote in response to Nelson. “But I also think that people have always believed crazy shit. And there have always been demagogues willing to exploit the people who believe crazy shit.”
In a separate email, the man who would go on to become Donald’s running mate wrote, “If you look at the polling, the issue where Trump gets the most support is on the economy.”
“If the response of the media, and the elites of both right and left, are to just say ‘look at those dumb racists supporting Trump,’ then they’re never going to learn the most important lesson of Trump’s candidacy.”
J.D. went on to say that he saw something in Donald Trump, and was fascinated and exhilarated by the fact that the media and Wall Street seemed to be no match against the New York real estate mogul.
“If he would just tone down the racism, I would literally be his biggest supporter.”
With the 2016 election polling day approaching, Nelson once again emailed Vance and informed him that they would be going door-to-door for Hilary Clinton.
“I’m counting my lucky stars that I live in a place where I don’t have to vote for her (because the margin will be so huge),” Vance responded, “because I know I could never support Trump if it really mattered.”
He goes on to predict that Hilary would win the 2016 election because Donald Trump was a “disaster” and “just a bad man.”
The newly leaked emails and text messages go on to show conversations Vance had with Nelson about many social and political issues, ranging from police brutality to racial issues, with J.D. even going so far as to write: “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”
In his book, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance would refer to his former classmate and friend as a “lesbian” — something he would later attempt to apologize to her for.
“I hope you recognize that the description came from a place of ignorance, when I first started writing years ago. I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry.”
Nelson, who now serves as a public defender in Detroit, actually attended Vance’s wedding in 2014 once even floated the idea of doing a podcast with J.D. that he suggested naming “The Lunatic Fringe.”
“He achieved great success and became very rich by being a Never Trumper who explained the white working class to the liberal elite,” Nelson told the Times when she handed over the dozens upon dozens of her past conversations with Vance. “Now he’s amassing even more power by expressing the exact opposite.”
A representative for the Republican VP nominee released a statement to the New York Times in response to the leaked correspondence, stating: “Senator Vance values his friendships with individuals across the political spectrum. He has been open about the fact that some of his views from a decade ago began to change after becoming a dad and starting a family, and he has thoroughly explained why he changed his mind on President Trump. Despite their disagreements, Senator Vance cares for Sofia and wishes Sofia the very best.”
This is far from the first time J.D. Vance has been exposed for his past hatred for the man he’s now serving under, as J.D.’s former Yale Law School roommate also released a trove of text messages that showed Vance referring to Donald Trump as “America’s Hilter” and comparing him to opioids.
You can find the full report from the Times here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
