‘Cultural heroin’ to 'great president': RNC speakers like JD Vance have transformed from Trump trash talkers to his closest allies
The Republican National Convention this week was full of speakers who are using the platform in Milwaukee to shower praise on former President Donald Trump.
This is normal for conventions. What is less normal is the extremely harsh things many of those same speakers have said about Trump in previous years. (And in many of those cases, Trump has insulted them right back.)
Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s vice presidential pick who delivered Wednesday’s keynote address, was among those sharp critics.
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a—hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance wrote in a message to a friend in 2016.
Publicly, in an essay that same year for the Atlantic, Vance was also blunt: “Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them.”
But the Republican Party today is in a very different place than it was in 2016. Eight years ago, Trump was challenging party norms, both in ideology and in etiquette. Now, he has fully transformed the party into his brand of combative populism.
And Trump clearly finds some appeal in converting a foe into a loyalist. In 2022, when Vance wanted Trump’s endorsement in his Senate race, he reportedly directly apologized to Trump.
“At that point, Trump seemed disarmed, and the meeting went on for almost two hours,” the New York Times reported this week. Trump ended up endorsing Vance, who would go on to win the race.
Here are some other former critics who are endorsing Trump at this week’s RNC:
Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor who served in Trump’s Cabinet as U.N. ambassador ran against him for president and was his main rival in the closing days of the 2024 Republican primary. She also had tough words for him, saying at one point that he was “not qualified to be the president of the United States.”
Amber Rose. The model, rapper and former reality television star endorsed Trump on the first night of the convention. In 2016, she gave an interview in which she called Trump a “f***ing idiot. He’s just such an idiot. He’s so weird. I really hope he’s not president.
Marco Rubio. The Florida senator ran against Trump in 2016. At the time, he insulted everything from Trump’s makeup to the size of his hands. He also called Trump a “con artist” and said he was “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.” He spoke Tuesday night.
Ted Cruz. The Texas senator also ran against Trump in 2016. He called Trump a “pathological liar,” “sniveling coward” and “utterly amoral.” He was booed for not endorsing Trump during his 2016 GOP convention speech. “God bless Donald J. Trump,” Cruz said Tuesday night.
Nancy Mace. The South Carolina representative declared that Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped out” by the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and that he would need to be held accountable. She spoke Wednesday.
There are many more examples of speakers who have criticized Trump without becoming outright public critics. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis largely avoided directly bashing Trump when he ran against him in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year, but he did say that the U.S. didn’t need a president who had “lost the zip on their fastball,” for instance. And former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took an apparent dig at one of Trump’s defenses for having classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency ended.
But a lot can happen over the course of a campaign, not to mention the years since Trump first emerged on the scene.
"I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016,” Vance said this week. “But President Trump was a great president, and he changed my mind."
