Vance forced to confront his previous criticism of Trump on debate stage – and blames the media

Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance has blamed the media for his savage past criticisms of the former president.

Speaking in a televised debate against his Democratic opposite number Tim Walz, the Ohio senator claimed that he was misled by "dishonest fabrications" when he compared Trump to Hitler and said he had "thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism".

"I've always been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump," Vance said on Tuesday night. "I was wrong first of all because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record.

"But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people. Rising wages, rising take-home pay, an economy that worked for normal Americans, a secure southern border; a lot of things, frankly, that I didn't think he'd be able to deliver on.

"And yeah, when you screw up, when you misspeak, when you get something wrong and you change your mind, you ought to be honest with the American people."

Vance was once a prominent 'never Trump' conservative, who called the capricious mogul everything from "a fraud" through "a moral disaster" to "cultural heroin", as well as privately worrying that he might be "America's Hitler".

But in 2021, with the help of his old Silicon Valley colleague Peter Thiel, Vance began to reconcile with Trump as he sought to become a Republican senator, ultimately charming the former president enough to become his vice presidential pick.