JD Vance is just a heartbeat away from the presidency – and that's the heart of the oldest man ever elected to the White House.

Just eight years ago, Vance criticized Donald Trump as a “fraud” and “moral disaster” and reportedly told a friend that he couldn't decide whether the MAGA mogul was a “cynical idiot like Nixon” or “America's Hitler.” ”

Thanks to Trump, he is now first in line to inherit the most powerful job in the world.

At 40, he will be the youngest vice president since that cynical idiot Nixon. After his swipe at Trump, the question remains: who is he and what would he do as president?

Vance's early history is well known. After high school, he left his home in Ohio to join the U.S. Marines for a four-year deployment, including six months in Iraq, where he was deployed in a non-combat role as a military journalist. He then graduated from Ohio State University with the help of the GI Bill before attending Yale Law School, where he met both his Indian-American wife Usha and his future mentor in the world of venture capitalism, right-wing billionaire , met Peter Thiel.

But it wasn't his military service, his legal acumen or his business success that brought Vance national attention. It was his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegywhich he had first been encouraged to write several years earlier by his Yale professor Amy Chua.

The book, subtitled “A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” was embraced by conservatives for its unflinching portrayal of social decay in Appalachia, the kind of disaffected white working-class communities whose support tipped the scales in Trump's 2016 presidential election. a few months after its release.

The book's success established Vance as a man with particularly personal knowledge of the Republicans' most valuable constituency, although the tall, lanky intellectual himself seemed at the time to be an unlikely conservative guru.

Vance continued to criticize Trump — “I'm a Never-Trump guy,” he told Charlie Rose in 2016 — and reportedly voted for independent Evan McMullin.

However, after Trump entered the White House, Vance put aside his natural disdain — deleting his rude tweets — to infiltrate the MAGA movement. He won Trump's support for a long-term run for Ohio in the U.S. Senate in 2022 and became one of his supporters' leading surrogates in D.C. as his re-election campaign got underway.

But even though Vance was on Trump's short list for vice president – his former vice president had run afoul of the January 6 mob – most expected Trump to choose a vice president with more experience in retail politics; the main candidate would be Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Vance had been approached by some of the most powerful figures in the broader MAGA movement, including Thiel, Elon Musk and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, as well as Trump's two older sons, Don Jr. and Eric.

Trump's decision to add Vance to his list on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, was seen as a victory for MAGA hardliners and a sign of Trump's confidence in his campaign with 81-year-old Joe Biden.

Two weeks later, Biden dropped out of the race, paving the way for his own vice president, Kamala Harris, and Trump's vice presidential pick appeared to hit him again. Vance's “weird” obsession with “childless cat ladies” was awkward on the campaign trail and was picked up by the Harris campaign.

Given Trump's age and the clear signs of his cognitive decline, it's fair to ask what kind of President Vance would be. On most political issues, he seems to be firmly on the right side of his boss – firmly anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, anti-transsexual, and of course anti-childless cat ladies – although for the most part he has managed to tailor his political statements.

The biggest clue to what a President Vance might look like has to be those who supported him as vice president: not just Thiel and Musk and the older Trump sons, but also the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank behind the 900-page project 2025 Policy Roadmap outlining the priorities of a second Trump administration, including radical cuts to the federal government.

Trump himself was forced to deny and distance himself from Project 2025 and its more extreme policy proposals. Vance was closely associated with the political push, even writing the foreword to a book by Heritage Foundation founder Kevin Roberts. Roberts told Politico in March of this year that Vance “will definitely be one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement.”

But after Trump once again defied the pollsters and won not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote, he paid tribute to Vance at his victory rally early Wednesday in Florida.

“I want to be the first to congratulate our great – now I can say – Vice President-elect JD Vance and his absolutely remarkable and beautiful wife Usha Vance,” Trump said as the crowd chanted “JD!” JD!”

“He's a lively guy, isn't he? You know, I said go into the enemy camp, and you know the enemy camp is made up of certain networks. Many people don't like that. Do I have to, sir? He just says: OK, which one? CNN? MSNBC? He will say “Thank you very much”…. He's really looking forward to it. And then he just goes and completely wipes them out.”

He continued: “He has proven to be a good choice. I was a little heated at first, but he was – I knew the brain was good, as good as it gets, and we love family, and we're going to have a great four years and turn our country around, make it something whole Special.”

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