Before he served him
In a private message, 2016
I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad… or that he's America's Hitler.
Message to a friend · 2016
Asked about it on Fox News in 2024, he did not deny it. "I don't hide from that," he said, adding that Trump's presidency had "changed my mind."
Sources: Snopes, verifying the message (Snopes)
In The Atlantic, 2016
Trump is cultural heroin… the needle in America's collective vein.
The Atlantic, “Opioid of the Masses” · 2016
He argued Trump sold voters a fix that felt good but could not heal them: "He makes some feel better for a bit," Vance wrote, "but he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they'll realize it."
Sources: His own essay (The Atlantic) · The magazine republished it (The Hill)
On the record, 2016, then deleted
I'm a Never Trump guy. I never liked him… I find him reprehensible.
Interviews and Twitter · 2016
He also told NPR that Trump was "noxious" and "leading the white working class to a very dark place," and said he might "have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton." He deleted the posts before running for Senate with Trump's endorsement.
Sources: The record of his deleted posts (The Daily Beast)
What he does with the office
Endorsing the plan Pence refused to carry out
If I had been vice president, I would have told the states… that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.
ABC's This Week · February 2024
That is the fake-elector scheme drawn up to overturn the 2020 result, the one Mike Pence refused to execute on January 6. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican, said Vance "would have done what VP Pence refused to do on January 6th, help Trump illegally seize power. That's tyranny. Neither Trump nor Vance is fit to serve."
Sources: ABC News · Cheney's response (The Hill)
Telling the country the courts cannot stop the president
Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.
On X · February 9, 2025
He posted it as federal judges were blocking the administration's early actions. Judicial review has constrained every other president; the claim amounts to arguing that the law binding everyone else does not bind this one. He has separately quoted Andrew Jackson, "let him enforce it", to suggest a president may ignore rulings he deems illegitimate.
Sources: His own tweet, reported on the right (The Blaze)
Lecturing Europe on democracy, then meeting the far right
The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is… the threat from within.
Munich Security Conference · February 2025
He told allied leaders their real danger was censorship and "running in fear of their own voters," then met the leader of the far-right AfD, a party under official investigation for extremism, days before a German election. He delivered the free-speech sermon abroad while, at home, the administration was suing broadcasters and stripping reporters of access.
Sources: NPR · The AfD meeting (CBC)