Vance steps into debate spotlight unpopular and unproven but with a knack for seizing the moment
CNN
In the closing months of a crowded Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Ohio, JD Vance found himself stuck in the middle of the pack.
In the closing months of a crowded Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Ohio, JD Vance found himself stuck in the middle of the pack. He appeared badly damaged by a barrage of ads painting the venture capitalist and former Donald Trump critic as an anti-MAGA San Francisco liberal. The pollster for a supportive super PAC warned that Vance’s campaign was in “precipitous decline,” arguing that he had failed to convince Republican voters of his conservative bona fides and loyalty to the former president. “Vance needs a course correction ASAP,” the pollster wrote in a February 2022 memo. It arrived a month later. With the five main primary contenders meeting onstage for the umpteenth time, the two perceived front-runners nearly came to blows. As they stood nose to nose, one readied to fight while the other uttered a sexist expletive. Vance, seated at the edge of the stage, pounced. “Think about what you just saw. This guy wants to be a US senator and he’s up here, ‘Hold me back. Hold me back,’” Vance said to loud applause. “What a joke. Answer the question. Stop playing around.” It was a breakthrough moment for Vance, one that led to a second look from GOP voters in his state and from Trump, who was closely watching the race but hadn’t acquiesced to the voices in his party urging him to get involved. Clips of the exchange and other debate moments impressed Trump, sources told CNN, and played a role in Vance securing a race-defining endorsement from the former president.
Former President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet at Trump Tower on Friday morning, according to Trump, giving the Ukrainian leader the chance to make a personal pitch to a GOP presidential nominee openly skeptical of continued US security assistance for Ukraine against Russia.
Filings from special counsel Jack Smith laying out never-before-seen evidence in the election subversion case against Donald Trump – including interview transcripts and notes from an investigation that counted among its witnesses former Vice President Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows – are now in the hands of a federal court.