Kellyanne Conway: Trump would choose JD Vance again

Kellyanne Conway, ex-senior adviser to former President Trump, said Thursday the GOP nominee does not regret picking Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate and said he would make the same decision today if given the opportunity.

In a live interview for The Atlantic Festival 2024, political journalist Tim Alberta noted that, when Trump made his selection for vice president, he was leading President Biden in the polls and members of the former president’s campaign “were openly talking to me, and in The Atlantic, about a blowout, 325 electoral votes.”

“It felt like, at that point, that the Vance pick was a luxury that they were making, that he was sort of choosing an heir apparent, rather than a sort of governing partner, and someone who could be additive to the ticket,” Alberta said, before asking whether she thinks Trump would pick someone else, had he known that Biden would bow out of the race just days later.

“No, he wanted Sen. Vance really all along,” Conway replied. “He kept going back to those last three finalists — and said that publicly — so I’m not saying anything that everybody didn’t hear.”

She continued, “So no, I think he always wanted somebody who he thinks is willing to go into enemy territory, the lion’s den on TV, because he had seen JD Vance on CNN, on MSNBC, on the three major networks, unafraid to talk about America First.

“He likes his life story. He likes, he likes his great academic credentials, like Yale Law School, but he also loves that tale of the American dream.”

She also threw the question back at the Democrats during the interview.

“I actually think the entire construct that you’re asking me is really a question for Vice President Harris, as goes Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania,” said Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016, while noting the decision “was a no-brainer.”

The Trump ally said she thinks some of the controversies about Vance are “baked in” already, noting the public is aware that the first-term senator was very critical of the former president and that he criticized childless women with pet cats.

“I think turning the spigot on him full blast in the first day or two was a mistake,” she said about the negative media coverage of Vance immediately after his announcement. “And here’s why: because what else is there? In other words, if you want to hurt someone, you dribble it out.”

“But everybody, the media, were so excited to maybe drown him and think Trump would leave him without a lifeboat,” she continued. “Trump’s not going to do that. He’s not going to do that any more than he’s going to fire his campaign team.”

Conway added that recommendations for Trump to drop Vance from the ticket were “coming from people who don’t like him and will never vote for him and spent years convincing us that, behind the scenes, outside of public view, Joe Biden is some, President Biden is somehow a trapeze-artist triathlete. So, I’m glad he ignored the advice.”