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‘Very Confident Pick’: Ben Shapiro Reacts To Trump Picking J.D. Vance As Running Mate

"It's a very, very confident pick."

   DailyWire.com
VANDALIA, OHIO - NOVEMBER 07: Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate JD Vance greet supporters during the rally at the Dayton International Airport on November 7, 2022 in Vandalia, Ohio. Trump campaigned at the rally for Ohio Republican candidates including Republican candidate for U.S. Senate JD Vance, who is running in a tight race against Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH).
Credit: Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) is a “very confident pick” by former President Donald Trump to be his vice president, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro said Monday.

Trump announced that he had selected Vance as his running mate Monday afternoon in a post on Truth Social.

“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote.

Shapiro offered his thoughts on the pick during a breaking news livestream just after the announcement.

Vance is “not a safe pick” but a “very, very confident pick,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro also said Vance is an “excellent articulator of the Trump vision” and is “very aggressive,” which is “probably why Trump picked him.”

The Ohio senator is an “absolute bulldog” in television appearances and a debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris should be a “bloodbath” in favor of Vance, Shapiro said.

Trump was also looking for someone with “an extremely high IQ,” Shapiro said.

Vance graduated from Yale Law School and worked in the tech industry as a venture capitalist.

Vance is also “ideologically flexible,” Shapiro said, adding that this is an “asset not a detriment.”

“The thing about Vance, I think, that you can suspect is that he’s going to staple himself to Trump’s positions,” Shapiro said.

“Donald Trump’s a pragmatist, will do what he feels like he has to do in order to get where he needs to go, and JD Vance is actually much more like that than any of the other candidates who were up for the position,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro recalled that JD Vance is on the record speaking out against Trump back in 2016 but later changed his mind to become an “extremely significant backer” of Trump.

On a strategic level, Shapiro said he believes Trump likely already has more appeal in the Rust Belt, “blue wall” states than Vance does, but Trump is “doubling down on that.”

“He figures that rather than try to appeal to, say, Hispanics with Marco Rubio, he’s probably figuring, there aren’t that many Hispanic voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,” Shapiro said. “What he’s figuring is that Vance is going to help him sew up those Rust Belt states.”

“He is focusing in on the white, working class voter, whom he believes JD Vance represents,” Shapiro added.

“From a strategic point of view, I think that [Virginia Governor] Glenn Youngkin would have been a smarter pick than JD Vance,” Shapiro said. “From a purely Donald Trump doesn’t give an ‘F’ and he is ready and raring to go, and he is going to secure his legacy by putting in place a very young, very charismatic vice president who is super capable, then Vance does that.”

“Senator Vance is a fascinating character. You’re going to learn a lot more about him,” Shapiro said.

Vance was elected to the Senate in 2022. After Trump’s announcement, Vance was seen shaking hands on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

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The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  ‘Very Confident Pick’: Ben Shapiro Reacts To Trump Picking J.D. Vance As Running Mate