JD Vance's 2020 messages resurface: Donald Trump 'thoroughly failed to deliver'

The messages were sent by JD Vance during Trump's last year in the White House. Vance messaged his acquaintance on the social media platform, which was then known as 'Twitter', criticising Trump's failure to fulfil his economic agenda as well as his methods of governance.  

In Short

• JD Vance's team claims comments targeted establishment Republicans
• He predicted Biden would win 2020 elections
• Vance later expressed support for Trump as president

Another twist emerged in the US presidential elections with only mere weeks left before the country goes to poll on November 5. In this new chapter, messages from 2020 sent by Republican Vice Presidential Nominee JD Vance have been obtained by the Washington Post, in which Vance criticised his running mate and former president Donald Trump.

The messages were sent by Vance during Trump's last year in the White House. Vance messaged his acquaintance on the social media platform which was then known as 'Twitter'. He sharply criticised Trump's failure to fulfil his economic agenda as well as his methods of governance.

“Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy),” Vance wrote in February 2020, The Washington Post reported. Vance also went on to offer his predictions, noting that Joe Biden would win the 2020 elections.

“I think Trump will probably lose,” he said in his June 2020 message, only a few months before ballots were cast in an election that Vance would later falsely claim was stolen by the Democrats.

Without delay, Vance's team released a statement noting his defence that his comments in 2020 were not criticisms of Trump but of the “establishment Republicans who thwarted much of Trump’s populist economic agenda to increase tariffs and boost domestic manufacturing in Congress.”

Vance's spokesperson, William Martin, added that, “Fortunately, Senator Vance believes that Republicans in Congress are much more aligned with President Trump’s agenda today than they were back then, so he is confident that they won’t run into those same issues within the party.”

The vice presidential nominee spoke of Trump in 2021, when running for rhe Senate.

"Like a lot of people, I criticised Trump back in 2016," said Vance. "And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak."

And yet, his messages in 2016 seem to be targeting the person Vance has now come to refer to as "the best president of my lifetime."

Vance has noted in the past that he voted for independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin in 2016 but changed his mind about Trump over the next four years because, as he put it in 2021, “he actually honoured his promises” in the White House.