Vance’s journey from vocal Trump critic to loyal second-in-command adds another layer. In 2016, he famously compared Trump to Hitler and Nixon. By 2024, he had become one of the former president’s most articulate defenders and a key architect of the MAGA movement’s vision. His reported words inside the chamber seemed to signal a hard-edged approach to governance: settling scores with institutions, officials, and opponents viewed as having targeted Trump over the past decade.
