Milwaukee — Before Ohio senator J.D. Vance took the stage Wednesday evening to formally accept his party’s vice presidential nomination, he got another boost from one of his biggest cheerleaders — his new boss’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
“No matter who you are, you can be a part of this movement to make America great again,” Don Jr. told the crowd. “Look at me and my friend J.D. Vance — a kid from Appalachia and a kid from Trump tower in Manhattan. We grew up worlds apart, and now we’re both fighting to save the country we love.”
Then came the zinger: “J.D. Vance is going to make one hell of a vice president.”
Don Jr. is one of his father’s closest political advisers, often appearing with at campaign appearances, fiercely defending him in television interviews, and giving him advice on rising GOP stars he believes are loyal to the MAGA movement. In recent months he’s emerged as a fierce advocate for his friend J.D. Vance, talking him up to his father and standing beside him onstage Tuesday afternoon during a media walk-through one day before both men delivered their primetime convention addresses here in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum.
Don Jr. is among a sea of Vance super-fans this week in Milwaukee. The Ohio delegation has gotten gobs of media attention in recent days from reporters who are eager to learn more about Buckeye State Republicans’ junior senator — a Marine veteran, Yale Law School graduate and former Trump critic first elected to political office in 2022.
“I’m sure it did help” Vance to have Don Jr. in his corner as the former president mulled other running mate options, Ohio delegate Janet Creighton told National Review on the convention floor Wednesday evening. This is her seventh convention, and she swears she hasn’t seen this much “enthusiasm” from Republicans since George W. Bush in 2004.
The energy inside the arena Wednesday was electric long before Don Jr. took the stage. Members of the Arizona delegation have begun sporting bandages on their ears in solidarity with Donald Trump, who survived an assassination attempt over the weekend at a Pennsylvania rally. Arizona Republican Susan Ellsworth praised another member of her delegation for trekking to Walmart around 11 PM Tuesday evening to buy more bandages for the group.
“You know when little kids have cancer and they have to shave their head, and you shave your head with them” to stand “solidarity?” she said in an interview earlier in the evening. “We think President Trump has started a new fashion.”
Trump paraphernalia abounds. The president’s name is all over the arena on cowboy hats, earrings, ties, bedazzled ball caps, and even shoes. Texas Representative Troy Nehls made sure to pack his Trump sneakers for this year’s convention. Asked how often he buffs his golden kicks to keep them so bright and shiny, Nehls flashed a big smile: “These things remain shiny. They do because they’re perfect. They’re perfect shoes by a perfect president.”
But even that fandom can’t match the loyalty felt by the former president’s namesake, especially in the wake of Saturday’s assassination attempt against his father.
“We came millimeters away from one of the darkest days in American history,” Don Jr. told the crowd in a stirring speech, in which he nearly teared up when paying tribute to Corey Comperatore, the man who lost his life at Saturday’s rally.“What was my father’s instinct as his life was on the line? Not to cower. Not to surrender. But to show for all the world to see that the next American president has the heart of a lion.”