Kentucky GOP quick to defend Trump, Vance against Beshear’s attacks

(The Center Square) – Less than one year after winning re-election, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has emerged as a potential vice-presidential candidate in the Democratic Party.

While he has used that opportunity to attack the Republican ticket, it also opens him up for the same kinds of rebukes, and GOP members in the Bluegrass State have fired back on his claims against President Donald Trump and Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.

After hammering Vance on his purported Eastern Kentucky roots in appearances on MSNBC and CNN, the governor continued zeroing in on Vance during his weekly press briefing in Frankfort.

Vance, whose family roots trace back to Eastern Kentucky, has written about his travels to the state, his family’s issues with drug abuse and the perpetual cycle of poverty in the region. Beshear and other Democrats have focused on the latter, claiming Vance insults the people living there and capitalizes off them.

In a statement to The Center Square, Republican Party of Kentucky Communications Director Andy Westberry strongly disagreed with the governor’s comments, adding that Vance’s upbringing was the polar opposite of Beshear’s, whose father served as the state’s governor from 2007 to 2015.

“Hillbilly Elegy is a story written from the perspective of a kid growing up in a broken home marred by addiction and abuse, that was at best unstable,” Westberry said. “Our governor comes from extreme privilege. His father was a high-profile politician, a managing partner of one of Kentucky’s largest law firms. Sen. Vance, on the other hand, wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth at all.”

Republican lawmakers also have noted the different tone Beshear has shown in the past week. Beshear often talked of rising above politics in his successful re-election campaign last year, saying he wanted to move the country forward instead of to the left or right.

Beshear also has not been shy of talking about his faith and how he has used that to call for protecting and supporting transgender youth.

State Sen. Robby Mills, a Henderson Republican who was then-Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s lieutenant gubernatorial running mate last year, took to social media after the governor’s CNN interview where Beshear described Vance as a charlatan.

“Was that a Matthew 22:39 response?” Mills posted on social media Tuesday. “I guess partisan barbs are okay if you are vying for VP.”

Much of the tone Beshear has displayed in the past week is reminiscent of his time as Kentucky’s attorney general when he often challenged then-Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration in court. Beshear would narrowly defeat Bevin in 2019 to win his first term. 

Beshear has also not been afraid to offer zingers against Trump. In the same CNN interview, the governor said Vance had no convictions but Trump had 34. That was in reference to the New York trial from earlier this year where the former president was found guilty of forging business records. Trump is appealing that case.

On Thursday, Beshear agreed Trump was a threat to democracy because he allegedly provoked the crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Republicans have said such claims fuel political discord across the country and perhaps led to the assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania earlier this month.

Westberry told The Center Square the governor doesn’t get that the Kentuckians he represents prefer Trump as president.

“Trump speaks for an electorate that is often forgotten until an election year,” Westberry said. “Democrats often belittle these people with derogatory insults and question their intelligence. In contrast, Trump and the Republican Party embrace the hard-working people of all backgrounds and circumstances by championing policies that uplift everyday Americans. 

“Instead of using rhetoric like ‘threats to democracy,’ let’s focus on policy. Beshear clearly knows the failed policies of Kamala Harris won’t resonate with everyday Americans.”