A former classmate of JD Vance has leaked a trove of emails and texts from the GOP Vice President pick – including remarks about Donald Trump in which he called the former president ‘a morally reprehensible human being.’
Sofia Nelson, a former Yale Law School classmate of Vance, has shared around 90 emails and text messages with the New York Times.
The emails shine a light on how Vance shifted from being a strong opponent of Trump to now being his running mate in the 2024 Presidential Election.
Nelson, who is transgender, said that the two were close friends but had a falling out in 2021 when Vance supported an Arkansas ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
In one email from 2015, Nelson wrote to Vance saying that a friend of theirs who wore a hijab no longer felt safe to do so. He replied calling Trump a demagogue.
Vance told her: ‘I’m obviously outraged at Trump’s rhetoric, and I worry most of all about how welcome Muslim citizens feel in their own country.
‘But I also think that people have always believed crazy shit. And there have always been demagogues willing to exploit the people who believe crazy shit.’
He also wrote in a separate email: ‘If you look at the polling, the issue where Trump gets the most support is on the economy.
‘If the response of the media, and the elites of both right and left, are to just say “look at those dumb racists supporting Trump,” then they’re never going to learn the most important lesson of Trump’s candidacy.’
Vance said that he saw something in Trump and that he found it exhilarating that the media and Wall Street seemed powerless against him.
He added: ‘If he would just tone down the racism, I would literally be his biggest supporter.’
As polling day approached in the 2016 election, Nelson informed Vance they would be going door-knocking for Hillary Clinton.
Vance responded: ‘I’m counting my lucky stars that I live in a place where I don’t have to vote for her (because the margin will be so huge), because I know I could never support Trump if it really mattered.’
He predicted that Clinton would prevail over Trump, calling him a ‘disaster’ and ‘just a bad man.’
In October 2014, after the killing of Michael Brown by a white police officer in St. Louis, Missouri, Nelson raised the issue of all cops wearing body cameras.
Vance replied: ‘I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.’
The following year after the Charleston church shooting, the two again discussed racial issues.
Vance said he didn’t understand why people ‘can’t see the connection between this person murdering innocent people and the fact that the Confederate flag still flies’ at the South Carolina Statehouse.
In his book ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, Vance referred to Nelson as a lesbian and later apologized to her for that.
He told her: ‘I hope you recognize that the description came from a place of ignorance, when I first started writing years ago. I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry.’
Nelson responded calling Vance ‘buddy’ while she also thanked him for ‘being sweet.’
They added: ‘If you had written gender queer radical pragmatist, nobody would know what you mean.’
Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, attended Vance’s wedding in 2014 and thought of doing a podcast together, he suggested they call it ‘The Lunatic Fringe.’
Nelson told the outlet: ‘He achieved great success and became very rich by being a Never Trumper who explained the white working class to the liberal elite. Now he’s amassing even more power by expressing the exact opposite.’
In a statement to the Times, a representative for Vance said: ‘Senator Vance values his friendships with individuals across the political spectrum.
‘He has been open about the fact that some of his views from a decade ago began to change after becoming a dad and starting a family, and he has thoroughly explained why he changed his mind on President Trump.
‘Despite their disagreements, Senator Vance cares for Sofia and wishes Sofia the very best.’