By EFE
18 Jul 2024, 02:21 AM EDT
Ohio Senator JD Vance, who was chosen by Donald Trump to be his running mate in the November election as his vice presidential candidate, paid tribute to him during his first speech at the Republican National Convention. He thanked him for not taking the easy way out because although “he didn’t need politics, politics needed him.”
“The man I have known personally over the last few years is tough, but he cares about people. He can be defiant in the face of a killer one moment, and urge national recovery the next,” he said in Milwaukee, where he stressed that both “love the country and are united to win.”
“I will give everything for your service”
“I will never take for granted the trust you have placed in me. What an honor to help you realize the extraordinary vision you have for our country. I pledge to all Americans, regardless of party, that I will give my all to you,” he added.
James David Vance, 39, whose address was preceded by that of his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, said the evening was “a night of hope, a celebration of what America once was.”
“And with God’s grace it will be again,” he said, recalling that one cannot forget that this moment could have been very different, if Thomas Matthew Crooks had missed his shot on Saturday during a rally in Pennsylvania and the bullet had killed Trump instead of grazing his ear.
“I never dreamed I would be here”
The senator accepted Trump’s nomination for vice president on Monday, but admitted his surprise at finding himself in this new position: “I never in my wildest dreams could have believed I would be here tonight,” he said in his first speech after being chosen as the Republican candidate for vice president.
In a calm tone, he stressed that Trump represents the last hope for something that has been lost and may never be found again; “a country where a working-class boy, far from the corridors of power, can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the United States,” he shared.
He added, “But this moment is not about me, it’s about all of us and who we’re fighting for. It’s about an autoworker in Michigan who wonders why politicians are destroying his jobs. It’s about a factory worker in Wisconsin who makes things with his hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.”
He remembered his humble origins
Vance alluded to his humble beginnings and gave some of the spotlight to his mother, cheered by the crowd at Fiserv Stadium. “A single mother who had a hard time with money and addiction, but she never gave up. I am proud to say that my mother has been sober for ten years.”
The senator stressed that Trump created “the best economy in history for working people” and asked the public to imagine what he would achieve if he wins another four years in the White House on November 5.
The former president, when announcing that he would be his “number two,” tasked him with focusing “strongly on the people for whom he fought so brilliantly, the American workers and farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota,” all of them key states, and “far beyond.”
“We will build factories again, put people to work making real products for American families, made by American workers. We will protect American wages and stop China from building its middle class at the expense of Americans,” he concluded.
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