“Hillbilly Elegy” author and Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance said Monday that he deeply regrets a big mistake he made once: not immediately giving Donald Trump his undying loyalty.Prior to announcing his bid for Senate last week, Vance deleted several anti-Trump tweets from 2016, including one where he said he would vote for third-party candidate Evan McMullin and another where he called Trump “reprehensible.” Vance initially charged that he was being attacked by other Republicans and CNN, the outlet that first reported that the tweets had been deleted, declaring to Tucker Carlson that “if you’re not willing to wade through a little crap to save this country, then you’re not willing to stand up on the big stage, and I am.”But on Monday he took to Fox News to proclaim that he was simply wrong about Trump, who somehow convinced Vance he was a “good president” after four deeply unpopular years in office.“Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” Vance told Fox News. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”“I think that he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak,” Vance added. Vance, who was once reportedly recruited as a potential Senate candidate by ur-establishment Republican Mitch McConnell, has taken a markedly anti-establishment posture in recent years. In April, as he was weighing a run for Senate, Vance reportedly met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago along with Peter Thiel, Vance’s former boss, who pumped $10 million into a PAC supporting him before Vance even announced his run. But Vance entered a crowded Republican primary with several other high-profile Republicans vying to out-Trump each other, including former state treasurer Josh Mandel and Jane Timken. Earlier this year Trump very nearly endorsed Timken, who raised money for Trump in 2016 and later became his handpicked selection for Ohio GOP chair, according to Axios.As for Vance, the venture capitalist-turned-politician said that ultimately, he hopes voters care about the issues more than whether he ever said anything negative about Trump—which, to reiterate, he took time to apologize for Monday. “I've taken a lot of flak myself for standing up for the president's voters but also standing up for the agenda,” Vance said. “I think that’s the most important thing, is not what you said five years ago, but whether you’re willing to stand up and take the heat and take the hits for actually defending the interests of the American people.”
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