(Los Angeles) In response to the selection of JD Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, Chris Newman, General Counsel of NDLON issued the following reaction statement:

“In picking J.D. Vance as his running mate, Donald Trump has found fitting partner: a slippery, smarmy white businessman who will do or say anything about immigrants to seize and hold power.

If you’ve read or heard anything about Vance, you’ll know that he used to harshly criticize Trump before he flipped and became a hard-core MAGA disciple. Except “core” may be the wrong word — because with Vance there is no core. Just an overwhelming nihilistic ambition that will take whatever shape it needs to fit the mold and message of his Dear Leader.

“In October 2016, Vance said this on Twitter about Trump:

‘Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.’

But when Vance ran for Senate in 2022, he said this in his first campaign ad:

‘Are you a racist? Do you hate Mexicans? The media calls us racists for wanting to build Trump’s wall. They censor us but it doesn’t change the truth: Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.

This issue is personal. I nearly lost my mother to the poison coming across our border. No child should grow up an orphan.’

The Trump campaign will no doubt spin this about-face to entice would-be voters. It offers a permission structure: If a smart Yale-educated lawyer like Vance changed his mind about Trump, they will say, maybe others should too.  This is why it’s important to be clear about Vance’s motives for scapegoating immigrants.

Vance is a venture capitalist who became famous for writing a best-selling memoir exploiting his poor white ‘hillbilly’ childhood in Appalachia. Now he is a Trump-certified white nationalist who says immigrants are murderous, drug-running future Democrats who tried to kill his mom.

Whatever Vance said or did or professed before, he is now No. 2 in the Trump 2024 campaign, which ties him to everything we fear about Trump’s potential return to power. That includes the threat to criminalize millions of immigrants, their families, their supporters, and their communities.  It is a plan to conjure phantom threats and to deliberately create cruelty and chaos with one singular goal in mind: attaining individual power.

NDLON stays out of electoral politics, but we do take positions on issues, and we defend our community. And we always stand up for truth, and call out lies when we see them. For immigrants and workers’ rights, Vance is a menace. It isn’t just that he personifies the word hypocrisy, and traffics dangerous lies about immigrants. It’s also that he is a charlatan like Trump, a compulsive liar who believes power comes from punching down.  His mendacity is all the more reprehensible because he claims to be standing up for the little man.

Because of this I find Vance reprehensible. I’m not a believer, but I would not argue with anyone who says: God wants better of us than Trump-Vance in 2024.”