Trump’s enforcer, MAGA translator: How JD Vance is growing his power as vice president

The public portion of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy was nearly over when the Ukrainian leader posed a question to America's second-in-command. The vice president took offense and went on the attack.

Pointing his finger at Zelenskyy and waving his hands, Vance accused Trump's guest of being "disrespectful."
"You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict," Vance said, leaning in.

Zelenskyy sat, arms crossed, and engaged Vance as Trump listened and eventually piled on. Gone were the days of vice presidents silently nodding on during diplomatic stagecraft.
From whipping votes for Trump's troubled nominees in Congress to slamming liberal governance in Europe, Vance has seized an early role for himself as Trump's enforcer in the U.S. and abroad.

The standoff in the Oval Office put Vance at the center of a sea change in American foreign policy and signaled how the 40-year-old vice president, who served a partial U.S. Senate term before his election to the White House, has stealthily amassed political power.

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Trump is not known for sharing the spotlight, but close allies and advisers say Vance has his trust and he’s been pleased with the probable 2028 presidential candidate’s performance so far. With Trump term-limited from running again, Vance could be the one defending the Make America Great Again legacy in the next presidential election.
In the Zelenskyy meeting, Trump had a split second decision to make, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a staunch Vance backer, said: Does he disagree with Vance and try to diffuse the conflict?

“He doubled down and had JD’s back,” Kirk noted. He said the moment demonstrated Trump has “a lot of respect” for Vance.

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Trump showed his trust by dispatching Vance on a pair of high-profile missions when his new administration was just getting started. The president sent Vance to the southern border Wednesday, immediately after Trump's joint address to Congress, to push the administration's hardline immigration message. Vance also delivered a fiery rebuke to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference last month.

Premeditated, methodical and selective in his approach, Vance's style is complementary to the president’s, advisers to both men said.
Less than two months into the new administration, Vance already has found multiple ways to turn a position that President John Adams once described as “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived” into a platform for bombshell moments.

“JD views his role as whatever helps the president, helps the administration the most at a given time, and sometimes that requires working behind the scenes,” a longtime Vance adviser who was not authorized to speak publicly said. “And then, sometimes, it requires him to peacock.”
Former US President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Former US First Lady Melania Trump and US Senator from Ohio and 2024 Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance react onstage after Trump accepted his party's nomination on the last day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 18, 2024. Days after he survived an assassination attempt Trump won formal nomination as the Republican presidential candidate and picked Ohio US Senator J.D. Vance for running mate. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Vance was pilloried by the national security establishment and accused of betrayal for berating an ally in the Zelenskyy confrontation.

“I think it was regrettable,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said.

The fallout continued during a vacation the vice president took to Vermont last weekend that drew hundreds of protesters and led Vance to move his family to a different hotel for "more privacy." A British politician scorned Vance this week after he suggested in an interview that the UK was a random country.
Still, Vance's strident defense of Trump's policies are helping him make inroads with MAGA – even if activists aren't ready to crown him their heir just yet.

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Unlike the odd couple pairing of Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, who was added to the 2016 ticket to reach Evangelicals and traditional conservatives but was Trump's temperamental opposite, the Trump-Vance match is a MAGA mind meld.
Trump eventually broke with Pence amid the fallout from the 2020 election, and activists are waiting to see how Vance performs. It's too early to judge his performance yet, they say, but the vice president's early impression could linger into 2028.
Vance was on his first overseas trip as vice president, and America’s allies were distraught.

It’s not Russia or China that poses the greatest threat to Europe, Vance said in accusing European leaders of restricting democracy and free speech. “What I worry about is the threat from within."
Afterward Christoph Heusgen, Germany's former ambassador to the United Nations and the retiring chair of the Munich Security conference said, “We have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore.”

Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia under former President Barack Obama, said Vance gave a “big lecture to all the Europeans about all their problems with democracy,” and chose not to chastise dictatorships in Belarus and Russia.