Vance defends ‘unfiltered’ Trump as GOP squirms over Harris attacks

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) defended former President Donald Trump on Wednesday from Republicans who are warning that his personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris are a distraction that could cost him the election in November.

At a rally outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Vance told reporters that Trump had “earned the right” to campaign as he saw fit and that his “unfiltered” approach to the race was actually an asset, not a liability.

Trump has been chided in recent days for off-script and, at times, incendiary comments about Harris’s race and IQ that have overshadowed Republicans’ attempts to paint her as a radical Democrat.

“To the people who say that Donald Trump should do something different, they had an opportunity to make Donald Trump do something different by challenging him over three separate primaries, every single one of which he won,” Vance said.

Trump has joined Republicans in seizing on Harris’s past flirtations with the far Left. During her 2020 run for president, she staked out positions on crime and immigration that she has since disavowed.

But Republicans fear that defeating Harris, who has turned the race into a virtual toss-up in swing state polling, will require a degree of message discipline that Trump has traditionally rejected. 

Over the last day, primary rivals, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have urged Trump to stay squarely focused on policy.

At rallies, Trump spends the bulk of his remarks focused on Harris and her record, but Vance disputed the idea that the Republican ticket is off course.

“Look, if you listen to what Donald J. Trump says, what I say, we are prosecuting the case against Kamala Harris on policy. We’re reminding people that Donald Trump delivered peace and prosperity, and Kamala Harris has delivered war all over the world and unaffordable groceries and housing here at home,” he said.

But Republicans argue that a procession of unflattering headlines has muddled that message. Trump sparked outrage earlier this month by falsely accusing Harris of faking her black identity. He also suggested that her campaign used artificial intelligence to inflate the size of a crowd.

The debate over Trump’s rhetoric is as old as his political career. Haley argued Tuesday that Trump risks swinging suburban voters, and possibly the election, away from Trump if he does not reevaluate himself.

But Vance said Trump’s unvarnished tone is exactly why he was elected in 2016, using the opportunity to criticize Harris for refusing to sit for an interview three weeks into her run for president.

“The reason people love him is because he’s his own man,” Vance said of Trump. “He lets the American people see who he is. And I will say that as his running mate, I obviously can’t always speak for the president, but I think I speak for the American people in saying this. We’d much rather have an American president who is who he is, who’s willing to offend us, who’s willing to tell us the truth, who isn’t a fake who hides behind a teleprompter but lets the American people see exactly who he is.”