ATLANTA — Georgia's Republican delegation at the GOP convention in Milwaukee is sold on JD Vance as vice president, according to the chairman of the state GOP.
Vance’s onetime law school roommate said Vance flipped after being a fierce critic of Trump. Before he became a U.S. senator from Ohio, JD Vance was a law school student at Yale and the roommate of an Atlanta Democrat Josh McLaurin.
"Anytime your old roommate becomes a vice presidential nominee, it’s pretty weird. I’ll say that much," McLaurin said.
McLaurin, a Democratic state senator, said he sent text messages to his old roommate JD Vance as Trump became an ascendant presidential hopeful.
McLaurin saved the texts.
The first of Vance’s texts said, “I find him loathsome (but he) touches a legitimate nerve.” The second speculated Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” Vance’s embrace of Trump eight years later is, to his former Democratic friend, stunning.
"Trumpism is a rejection of many of the classic conservative principles that I thought JD stood for, and it’s the embrace of a much different and more volatile brand of politics. He certainly was not part of that back then," McLaurin said.
Vance is one of many Republicans who initially rejected Trump in 2016, but supported him afterward. Georgia’s Republican chairman said as a VP candidate, he can relate to conservatives not fully sold on Trump.
"You know, there's an old saying that there's no zealot like a convert. And I think that JD Vance is so well positioned to support this ticket in so many ways," said Josh McKoon, Georgia's Republican chairman. "Here's somebody that can speak directly to that audience," McKoon said.
"I think it says that his principles are malleable if power is on the line," countered McLaurin, who says Vance's personal politics became more confrontational after he started embracing Trump.
McLaurin said Vance is among the conservatives who have stirred anger at Democrats and their supporters and view Trump as their vehicle to overpower them.
"I think that JD’s selection by Trump indicates a clear intention by Trump to double down on a type of contempt and anger that both JD and Trump have been masters at peddling," he said.