Biden Calls Vance a Trump ‘Clone’ in Race to Define GOP Ticket

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden labeled JD Vance “a clone” of running mate Donald Trump as Democrats sought to quickly define the Ohio senator to voters by casting doubt on his independence and populist credentials.

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“He’s a clone of Trump on the issues,” Biden told reporters Monday as he boarded Air Force One before flying to Las Vegas. “I don’t see any difference.”

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In a separate social media post, Biden said while Vance “talks a big game about working people,” that “he and Trump want to raise taxes on middle-class families while pushing more tax cuts for the rich.”

The president’s remarks were just one part of a full-court press deployed by his campaign after Trump’s selection was announced Monday, as aides and allies seek to define Vance — who is largely unknown to many voters beyond Hillbilly Elegy, his memoir of growing up in Rust Belt poverty that spurred a national discussion about the White working class.

Democrats are eager to paint the venture capitalist-turned senator as both subservient to Trump and the elite, in a bid to blunt the populist appeal he’s cultivated during his career in Washington. Vance, 39, also marks a potential generational shift for Republicans — decades younger than Trump, 78, and Biden, who at 81 is the oldest US president in history.

“Trump’s VP pick is great news for the wealthiest Americans,” Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, told reporters in a conference call on Monday. “With Trump-Vance, Social Security and Medicare cuts will bear down on seniors like an avalanche.”

Trump notably broke from his last running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence, over his refusal to block the certification of Biden’s election win. Protesters in the mob of Trump supporters who marched on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”

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That episode is expected to animate Democrats’ efforts to paint Vance as extreme, as they hope to reverse an election where they’re trailing according to opinion polls.

In a statement, Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said Trump tapped Vance because he “will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people.”

O’Malley Dillon said Vance would “make it his mission to enact Trump’s Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families,” citing a blueprint for the former president’s return to power being drafted by some of his closest allies that calls for stacking federal agencies with loyalists and enacting socially conservative policies.

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement that Vance “championed and enabled Trump’s worst policies for years.”

“Let’s be clear: A Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms, and our future,” he said.

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Debate Challenge

And Warren said the current vice president, Kamala Harris, was eager to debate the new Republican selection. The Biden campaign has already accepted a proposal from CBS News for a potential debate, while Trump has sought to encourage a debate on more conservative Fox News.

“I’ve known her for over 15 years while she’s been in every kind of fight on behalf of working families,” Warren said. “She doesn’t give an inch and she has the better end of the argument.”

Harris reached out to Vance and left a message to congratulate him on his selection and encourage him to accept the CBS News debate, a Biden campaign official said.

Trump said he had tapped Vance earlier Monday as the Republican National Convention got underway in Milwaukee, ending weeks of speculation as the former president sought to gin up intrigue and suspense over his pick of a running mate.

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Trump likened the process to his former reality television show The Apprentice during a weeks-long decision that saw the potential contenders jockey for influence by fundraising for the president and appearing by his side — including at his Manhattan trial over hush-money payments.

Vance’s selection comes just two days after Trump survived a failed assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — where he was wounded after a bullet grazed his ear. That incident was a grave reminder of the importance of the vice president, who would assume the duties of the Oval Office if the president were killed or unable to fulfill his role.

Shortly after the rally, Vance was among the Republicans who blamed rhetoric from Biden and Democrats for the assassination attempt.

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance wrote in a post on X. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

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