JD Vance, 39, formally accepted vice-presidential nomination on third day of convention, making him among youngest Americans to ever fill that role.
JD Vance with wife Usha/ PTI
US Republican vice presidential nominee J D Vance praised former president Donald Trump and promised to fight for working-class Americans "cast aside and forgotten" by the Democrats, as he made his debut at the Republican National Convention.
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Vance, 39, formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on the third day of the convention on Wednesday, making him among the youngest Americans to ever fill that role.
Introducing himself to millions of Americans, the Ohio Senator channelled his humble roots in the Midwest as he assailed politicians like President Joe Biden.
Trump and his running mate Vance will challenge President Biden and his Vice-President Kamala Harris from the Democratic Party in the November 5 presidential election.
Vance said for the last eight years, President Trump has given everything he has to fight for the people of our country. Trump didn't need politics, but the country needed him, he said.
"Prior to running for president, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the world. He had everything anyone could ever want in life. And yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander, and persecution," he said.
The author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about his impoverished family, said "America's ruling class" had destroyed communities like his hometown with trade agreements and foreign wars.
"From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again," he said.
Trump represents America's last best hope to restore what " if lost " may never be found again, he said. "I pledge to every American, no matter your party, I will give everything I have," Vance said. "To serve you and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family and your country will be possible once again."
He accused "career politicians" like President Biden, 81, of destroying communities like his with ill-fated trade policies and foreign wars. "When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, a bad trade deal that sent countless good American manufacturing jobs to Mexico. When I was a sophomore in high school, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good middle-class jobs. And when I was a senior in high school, Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq," he said.
"And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan and other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war. Somehow, a real estate developer from New York by the name of Donald Trump was right on all of these issues while Joe Biden was wrong. Donald Trump knew, even then, that we needed leaders who would put America First," he said.
Vance said Trump's vision is simple: "We won't cater to Wall Street, we'll commit to the Working man. We won't import foreign labour, we'll fight for American citizens."
The United States under the leadership of Trump will protect the wages of American workers and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of hard-working American citizens.
He said Biden and the other out-of-touch politicians in Washington gave Americans a country that was flooded with cheap Chinese goods, cheap foreign labour and deadly Chinese fentanyl.
"Joe Biden screwed up, and my community paid the price," Vance alleged.
Vance said never in his wildest imagination would he have believed that he could be standing here tonight. Vance said the country needs Trump as the president.
"Some people tell me I've lived the American Dream, and they are right. But the American Dream that always counted most was not starting a business or becoming a senator or even being here with you fine people, it was becoming a good husband and a good dad, and giving my family the things I never had as a kid.," he said.
In the speech, he charted his journey from a difficult childhood in small-town Ohio to the US Marines, Yale Law School, and finally the US Senate.
Describing the evening as "a night of hope" and promising change, Vance threaded a sense of optimism throughout his speech.
One emotional moment came when Vance introduced his mother, Beverly, who struggled with drugs during his childhood but who he said had been sober for nearly a decade. He also lavished praise on his wife Usha. "I am married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country, incredible people, people who genuinely have enriched the country in so many ways," Vance said.
"And of course, I'm biased, because I love my wife, but I believe that it's true. When I proposed to my wife, we were in law school, and I said, Honey, I come with USD 120,000 worth of law school debt and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in eastern Kentucky," he said.
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