Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said Sunday that his past remarks about then-candidate Donald Trump ahead of the 2016 election were “wrong.”
CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Vance on a tweet that he posted in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape of Trump surfaced that stated, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us. When we apologize for this man, lord help us.”
She asked him whether he still feels that way about Trump’s “sexual indiscretions” amid the ongoing hush money trial, noting he has since deleted the tweet.
“But, look, my view on Donald Trump — I have been very clear on this — is, look, I was wrong about him. I didn’t think he was going to be a good president, Dana, and I was very, very proud to be proven wrong. It’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to get him elected,” he replied on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Vance had made comments against Trump’s bid in 2016, prompting Ohio Republicans in 2022 to urge Trump not to endorse him. Vance ended up clinching Trump’s support and winning his election.
Vance is among the rumored contenders to be the former president’s running mate in the 2024 election. He and Trump have now been vocal supporters of each other since Vance first ran for election in 2022.
Vance also spoke about the ongoing hush money trial, explaining that Trump is not being charged for “sexual indiscretions.”
“Well, first of all, Donald Trump is not on trial for sexual indiscretions. This is a sham trial where they’re saying his misdeed is that he violated the law, that he committed a crime,” he said.
“You can’t throw somebody in prison in the middle of a presidential election because you think that he did something bad 10 years ago. So I think we have to separate these arguments from the actual criminal trial that’s attempting to, in my view, Dana, interfere in a presidential election,” he said.
The former president is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to a reimbursement made to his ex-fixer, Michael Cohen, for a payment made to porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to keep quiet about an alleged affair from a decade prior.