Is Donald Trump getting cold feet over JD Vance? What we know (2024)

Amid Joe Biden ending his re-election campaign, rumors are emerging that Donald Trump is regretting his choice of running mate.

But in a statement shared with Newsweek, Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, denied reports that Trump was second-guessing his choice of running mate.

"President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either non-existent sources or individuals who have no idea what's going on," Cheung said.

"Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy."

Biden endorsed Kamala Harris as his replacement on Sunday after he announced he would no longer be running as the Democratic party's nominee for President amid concerns over his health and age.

"My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it's been the best decision I've made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsem*nt for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats—it's time to come together and beat Trump. Let's do this," he wrote in a post on X.

Following the announcement, Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, immediately seized on Democrats, claiming that the GOP would challenge the party's right to switch Joe Biden for Kamala Harris.

"I think they've got legal hurdles in some of these states," Johnson told CNN on Sunday. "And it'll be litigated, I would expect, on the ground there."

But a possible legal challenge is not the only sign that the Republicans may be nervous about Biden's decision.

Trump decried Biden's decision to drop out in a post on Truth Social on Sunday, writing that his team would have to "start all over again" and asking to be reimbursed for the cost.

Reports have also emerged that Trump regrets choosing J.D. Vance as his running mate as much of the former president's campaign, including the decision to tap the Ohio Senator as his Vice President, has been structured around attacks on Biden.

"Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was borne of co*ckiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter," Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta posted on X.

Alberta has over 173,000 followers, while the tweet has been viewed 2.9 million times.

In an Atlantic article written by Alberta, Trump campaign officials acknowledged that the former president selected the inexperienced Vance to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters, because he was already certain that he was going to win against Biden, who was declining in the polls and facing calls from his own party to resign over his health.

But with Biden out as the candidate, Trump's strategy could fall on deaf ears.

In the days following Biden's announcement, Trump has defended his running mate, brushing off past criticism from Senator Vance in an interview.

"He didn't know me," he said on Vance, who was once an ardent critic of Trump, describing him as "America's Hitler."

"And then when we got to know each other, he liked me maybe more than anybody liked me," Trump said during the pretaped interview aired Monday night on Jesse Watters Primetime.

"And he would stick up for me. And he'd fight for the worker as much as I fight for the worker," the president added. "We just had an automatic chemistry."

Vance has also continued to appear at Trump campaign events, using his first solo campaign rally on Monday to throw fresh barbs at Vice President Kamala Harris.

"History will remember Joe Biden as not just a quitter, which he is, but as one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States of America," Vance said in Virginia. "But my friends, Kamala Harris is a million times worse and everybody knows it. She signed up for every single one of Joe Biden's failures, and she lied about his mental capacity to serve as president."

Nonetheless, Trump's decision to run on a ticket with Vance could still earn him a blow to his campaign.

According to Politico, if Harris becomes the Democrats' nominee for President, "much of the subsequent election campaign is likely to domestically focus on abortion and women's rights," which could prove a problem for Trump after polls have consistently shown that the proportion of women planning to vote for him this November is smaller than those who did in 2020.

Meanwhile, Vance's views on abortion could also hurt Trump's campaign.

Vance has opposed abortion rights, saying in 2021 that a pregnancy or birth resulting from rape or incest should not be viewed as "inconvenient."

In the interview, Vance was asked whether laws should allow women to get abortions if they were victims of rape or incest.

He responded: "My view on this has been very clear and I think the question betrays a certain presumption that is wrong. "It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it's whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circ*mstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society. The question really, to me, is about the baby."

In a recent interview with Sean Hannity, Vance accused the Democrats of "twisting" his words on abortion.

"The Democrats have completely twisted my words. What I did say is that we sometimes in this society see babies as inconveniences, and I absolutely want us to change that," he said.

Vance has also made a string of highly contentious statements about divorce, implying that women trapped in abusive marriages should remain married for the sake of the kids, adding that ending marriages that were "maybe even violent" would be selfish. "This is one of the great tricks that the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace," he said in 2022 in footage published by Vice News. "Making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear."

Vance was responding to a question a moderator's question: "What's causing one generation to give up on fatherhood when the other one was so doggedly determined to stick it out, even in tough times?"

In his interview with Hannity, Vance also alleged that his comments on divorce had been misreported.

"Both me and my mom actually were victims of domestic violence. So, to say 'Vance has supported women staying in violent marriages,' I think it's shameful for them to take a guy with my history and my background and say that that's what I believe. It's not what I believe. It's not what I said," he said.

Writing in an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch last week, columnist Jordan Barkin wrote Vance's controversial views won't appeal to women or swing voters and, in turn, won't help Trump's chances of becoming president again.

"Women are not a focus of the Ohio senator," he wrote, adding that "many swing voters" disagree with his stance on abortion.

A poll released in May by the Pew Research Center of 8,709 adults found that "a clear majority of residents in the top swing state support abortions."

Another poll conducted by FOX 13/Insider Advantage between July 15-16 showed that the former president was holding an overall 6-point lead over Biden. But that wasn't the case among women voters—whom Biden still had a narrow lead among, with 44 percent of women polled supporting Trump, compared to 48 percent for Biden.

The poll, which had a sample size of 800 Florida voters, had a 3.94 percent margin of error.

Women currently comprise 51 percent of the voting-age population in the U.S.

Update 07/23/24 12:48 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Steven Cheung and context from Sean Hannity's interview with JD Vance.