JD Vance’s Republican colleagues defend Trump’s running mate saying Ohio senator is a voice for next generation of GOP voters

(CNN) — JD Vance’s Republican colleagues in the Senate say they’re largely sticking with the Ohio freshman – despite newly resurfaced comments facing criticism – warning that Vance represents where Republican see their voters moving.

In the weeks since becoming Donald Trump’s chosen running mate, Vance has found himself caught in the middle of major test for a shifting Republican Party: Can a young lawmaker who represents the most populist voices in the party actually catapult Republicans to victory? Or are he and his message still a liability that could cost Trump the White House?

Since he was tapped as Trump’s running mate, Vance’s stumbles and past statements – from attacks on “childless cat ladies” to proposing to raise taxes on those without children – have been billed as out of touch with the mainstream. His foreign policy positions are seen as on the fringe for old guard Republicans who have spent decades exposing the virtues of the United States’ role in the world.

But most Republican senators have said they’re sticking with Vance.

“There is value that comes from experience, but generations are changing. The way people look at the world and the things they know are different than the people who have been here longer,” GOP Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas said. “I think there is a time for turning the page.”

Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate set up the 40-year-old Ohio senator as the heir apparent to Trump’s brand of Republicanism that has transformed the Republican Party over the past eight years. For many in the Republican Party, Trump’s populist and isolationist impulses were often met with an eye-roll, especially during his first term when GOP lawmakers were constantly forced to comment on Trump’s latest policy stance issued via tweet.

But Vance, who has been in the Senate fewer than two years, has fully embraced the populism mantle of the party, putting him at odds with many of his fellow senators -– including GOP Leader Mitch McConnell –- on issues like aid to Ukraine.

“I have often said to him he is the intellectual conscience of the populist movement. In other words, he really does believe it. It’s not an opportunistic thing for him,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican. “He articulates it. He studies it. I like him because he is so communicative. Strong opinions but he also is quite eloquent. I don’t agree with him all the time – several things geopolitically – but I find him a pleasure to work with.”

“He didn’t take his seat in the back of the class. That’s really clear,” Cramer said of Vance not really being a shrinking violet.

Still, Vance’s stumbles since his selection and the wave of criticism over his past remarks have sparked questions – including from those inside the party – about whether his selection was the right one, especially since President Joe Biden’s dropping out has shaken up the campaign and jolted new energy into the Democratic base around Vice President Kamala Harris.

“We are just hoping that Kamala Harris won’t pick someone reasonable,” said one GOP senator.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, when pushed on if Vance was the right choice, told CNN’s Manu Raju. “I’ve never been in a selection pool for VP, so I don’t necessarily – I’m not going to opine on that.”

Pressed on whether Vance is a good candidate, Tillis replied, “I know JD well; I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the past couple of years. I think he’s a smart guy. I think that … the Trump campaign picked him for a reason. I’m behind the ticket.”

The ‘cat ladies’ comment comes back to haunt Vance

As a Senate candidate in 2021, Vance said on Tucker Carlson’s former Fox News show that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

The comments, which emerged not long after his selection as Trump’s running mate, have prompted criticism both from Hollywood celebrities as well as Republican senators.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is not supporting Trump’s bid, criticized Vance’s past comments as “offensive to me as a woman.”

“Women make their own determinations as to whether or not they’re going to have children or cats or dogs or how many kids they’re going to have,” she told Raju.

Even Vance allies have expressed caution about the remark. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said that Vance would make a “great vice president,” but also that he doesn’t believe Republicans should echo his now-infamous remarks.

When asked by reporters Tuesday if Republicans should be mirroring Vance’s rhetoric around people who don’t have children, Hawley said, “No.”

“It’s hard to have a family in America today, it’s really expensive. … So that’s what we ought to be talking about,” Hawley said. “I think we as a party should offer solutions to that.”

Hawley is otherwise very supportive of Vance on the Republican ticket, saying he personally encouraged his long-time law school friend to run for the Senate years ago.

A widening gulf in foreign policy

For many GOP senators who have broken with Trump on his anti-NATO rhetoric, Vance’s most concerning stances deal with foreign policy, where Vance has been among the most vocal opponents of sending foreign aid to Ukraine.

Vance fought against McConnell when Congress was considering a package of billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine, which was eventually greenlit by House Speaker Mike Johnson and signed into law.

During Trump’s first term, Trump’s foreign policy positions were often at odds with senior Republican senators, including the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and former Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee.

But like the House, the Senate is now cast more in Trump’s mold, a transformation that’s included the election of Vance in 2022 on a campaign that included stopping military aid to Ukraine.

“You’re going to see a divide among Republican senators. I think one difference is the Republican Senate in 2025 vs 2017 is going to to have a larger number of members who share President Trump’s worldview – or at least are amendable to his worldview, rather than just stridently opposed,” said Alexander Gray, who was chief of staff of the National Security Council under Trump.

Gray said that Vance’s foreign policy worldview stems from his military service in Iraq and what he sees as the failures of American entanglements abroad. But he also noted that Vance supports an aggressive approach toward China and does not just want the US to retreat from the world stage altogether.

“That worldview is about making hard choices with limited resources and devoting our resources to what is an existential threat with China,” Gray said. “He’s not for abdicating US global leadership; he’s not for stepping back from the US being a muscular power on the world stage.”

GOP senators who back continued support to Ukraine privately say they’re hopeful that Vance might evolve as time goes on. There is a sense that as he learns more and becomes more aware of the fuller national security picture – connecting China and Iran and Russia – he will understand that the US can’t ignore Russian aggression and expect other enemies to not to respond in kind.

“I don’t think anybody is going to have the option of being isolated to leave the rest of the world alone,” said one GOP senator who backs Ukraine.

But Vance is hardly the only skeptic toward keeping up aid to Ukraine indefinitely inside the GOP Senate Conference, and it’s a fight that will likely play out early in a second Trump term should he win in November.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, a fellow freshman from Missouri who is arguably the closest to Vance in the chamber, defended the Ohio senator, arguing that Vance was an effective spokesman for today’s Republican Party.

“I think if you listen to our voters, they want the United States to be making decisions that are in the strategic best interest of the United States of America,” Schmitt said. “We can’t be everywhere all the time. I think the hubris of people advocating for a foreign policy of days gone by, we don’t have the capability to do all of those things. I don’t want to speak for him on that, but I think that is what he has talked about. He has not talked about withdrawing from the world.”

Senators say they don’t have remorse

Despite a series of missteps, multiple GOP senators say that Vance is learning and adapting as he goes. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said he spoke to Trump about Vance before the vice presidential selection and it was Vance’s “energy” that attracted him to the Ohio Republican.

“Energy is a big issue for him,” Mullin said of Trump. “He liked JD’s energy. He liked his way to carry a message and articulate (it). He liked that he was well known and came from a true American story completely opposite of (Trump’s) story so I think it was one of those things that he checked a lot of the boxes that Trump was looking for.”

Mullin downplayed the significance of the comments that have come out of Vance’s history.

“Trump had vetted him. He knew who he was, and it’s just an issue you gotta deal with everybody. Look, he’s 39 years old. I am 47. He grew up with more technology than I did,” Mullin said earlier this week, before Vance turned 40. “He grew up with more technology than I did, anybody who runs for office who is under 40, I think, is gonna have such a footprint of everything they said online. … Their personalities and their mindset changes as they get older and have kids.”

Sen. Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican,  also defended Vance’s comments.

“You know I have gotten in a couple of scrapes where you have to be careful how you say it. I have been here a good while and have had very few, but I know how that dynamic works,” Braun said. “I am certain that if we stick to the merits of the case, we’ll be able to overcome any of the other stuff that comes at us.”

CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.

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