JD Vance takes on more visible transition role, working to highlight Donald Trump’s most contentious election

WASHINGTON — After working mostly behind closed doors for several weeks, the vice president-elect J.D. Vance He returned to Capitol Hill this week with a new, more visible mission: to help Donald Trump Try to confirm the most contentious Cabinet picks in the Senate, where Vance has served for the past two years.

Vance arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday with former Rep. Matt Gaetz and spent the morning sitting in on meetings between Trump’s pick for attorney general and key Republicans, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This effort was in vain: Gaetz announced a day later that he was withdrawing his name Amidst scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations and the fact that they are unlikely to be verified.

On Thursday morning, Vance was back, this time accompanying “Fox & Friends Weekend” host Pete Hegseth, whom Trump has tapped to be the next secretary of defense. Hegseth also faced allegations of sexual assault, which he denied.

Vance is expected to accompany other candidates in meetings in the coming weeks as he tries to use his two years in the Senate to help advance Trump’s election.

The role of promoting candidates around Capitol Hill is an unusual one for the vice president-elect. Often the job is given to a former senator or a more junior aide with close ties on the Hill.

Marc Short, Trump’s first director of legislative affairs and who also served as chief of staff to Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, who spent more than a decade in Congress and led the former president’s transition, said the role fits Vance this time around he said. before his first term.

“JD probably has a lot of existing allies in the Senate, so it makes sense for him to be used in that capacity,” Short said.

Unlike the first Trump transition, which took place in front of cameras at Trump Tower in New York and at the president-elect’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, this transition largely took place behind closed doors in Palm Beach, Florida.

There, a small group of officials and aides meet daily at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to vet possible candidates and interview job candidates. The group includes billionaire Elon Musk, who spent so much time at the club that Trump joked he couldn’t get rid of it.

Vance remained a constant presence, albeit with a lower profile. The Ohio senator has spent much of the past two weeks in Palm Beach and has played an active role in the transition process, serving as honorary chairman, according to sources familiar with his plans.

Vance is staying at a country house on the grounds of the gilded club, where rooms are decorated with angels, oriental rugs and intricate gold embroidery. It’s a far cry from the famously difficult upbringing Vance documented in the memoir that made him famous, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

His young children also joined him at Mar-a-Lago from time to time. Vance, in shorts and a polo shirt, was photographed playing with his children on the property’s seawall with a large palm frond, a U.S. Secret Service robotic security dog ​​in the distance.

On the rare days he is not in Palm Beach, Vance attends sessions remotely via Zoom.

Although Vance has taken a break from regular television interviews for months, he takes an active role in the meetings that begin immediately after the election, which include presentations as well as interviews on the pros and cons of the candidates.

Among those interviewed: Contestants He will replace FBI Director Christopher WrayAs Vance wrote in a since-deleted social media post.

Defending himself against criticism that he missed the Senate vote confirming one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, Vance wrote that he met with President Trump at the time “to meet with many positions on behalf of our government, including the FBI Director.” ”

Vance added of X: “I think it’s more important to find an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than for the Republicans to lose 49 to 46 votes instead of 49 to 45.” “But that’s just me.”

Although Vance didn’t come to the transition with a list of people he wanted to see in specific roles, he and his friend, who is also a member of the transition team, were eager to see Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. finds positions in management.

Trump is over Choosing Gabbard as the next director of national intelligencea powerful position at the top of the nation’s spy agencies and serving as the president’s top intelligence adviser. And he chose Kennedy Leading the Department of Health and Human ServicesIt’s a massive agency that oversees everything from drug and food safety to Medicare and Medicaid.