Donald Trump's campaign is bracing for another round of backlash involving J.D. Vance's extreme takes.
The Republican vice presidential candidate has repeatedly been dogged by his own remarks deemed to be misogynist, off-putting behavior and association with right-wing extremists – most infamously his slandering of Kamala Harris and other Democrats as "childless cat ladies" in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson – and the Trump campaign sees a fresh predicament on the horizon, reported The Bulwark's Marc Caputo.
"More controversy is likely on the way," Caputo wrote. "Vance pre-recorded an interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday just hours after the White House criticized the right-wing populist for featuring a historian who suggested, a few days before, that the Holocaust happened by accident. Later this fall, CNN reported, Vance is scheduled to appear as a guest of Carlson’s during a live speaking tour."
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“'Not ideal timing. But it is what it is,' a Trump campaign official said."
Trump world views the 40-year-old Ohio senator as a welcome dose of clarity in contrast to the 78-year-old former president, who's been increasingly raising concerns about his age and fitness with often incoherent rants on the campaign trail, but Democrats see Vance as an anchor with a net favorability of negative12.
"David Paleologos, the Suffolk University pollster who conducted [a recent] survey, said Vance’s poor poll numbers are probably the result of a combination of factors: his controversial statements, the downstream effect of Trump’s ratings (the ex president had a net positive rating of -14 percent) and his lack of a traditional running-mate rollout," Caputo said. "Trump announced Vance as his running mate on the first day of the Republican National Convention, giving him less of a 'springboard' to introduce himself to the public. In contrast, Harris announced [Tim] Walz as her pick a week before the Democrats’ convention."
But much of Vance's unpopularity falls on his own shoulders, said former Barack Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, who said the first-term senator had traded in whatever public goodwill he once enjoyed to become “the ambassador from the Trump campaign to mainstream media and alternative media."
"Seven years ago, when Vance first stepped on the scene as an anti-Trump Republican and author of the best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, Axelrod said he was impressed with Vance’s thoughtfulness and encouraged him to run for office," Caputo reported. "'Then he made this lurch to the right,' Axelrod added. 'He speaks fluent mainstream media, but it’s not his chosen language anymore. He prefers to speak MAGA, and he knows the hot buttons to push. It’s gotten him this far, and from Trump’s standpoint, that’s the language he wants him to speak.'"
