Hacked Trump campaign documents underline JD Vance’s thirst for power | The Homestretch

On Thursday, freelance journalist Ken Klippenstein published part of the trove of Trump campaign documents hacked by the government of Iran on his Substack, a medium for independent writers and journalists. While these documents have long been available to major outlets — including Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times — they have declined to publish them. New York Times editor Joseph Kahn said they didn’t pass the newsworthy test.

Of course, many of these same outlets took the opposite approach when it came to Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails, but that was so 2016 ago.

For the most part, the documents published do not include any major revelations. Much of the information is already part of the public record. If the documents show anything, it is just how far Sen. JD Vance is willing to go to possess power.

After all, early Vance sounds quite reasonable.

The dossier notes that in 2018, Vance criticized the Trump tax cuts as being “stuck in the 1980s.” The old Vance also wanted to increase capital gains taxes and corporate taxes, emphasized the needs of families over the market, supported sectoral bargaining, opposed right-to-work laws, and spoke against early Trump administration efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

On the topic of Donald Trump himself, the old JD is quite prescient. He compared the former president to heroin, saying that the MAGA movement is nothing but a quick high. Vance even echoed Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” comment, saying that some Trump supporters could be called “if not racist, at least expressing some sort of racial resentment.”

That’s a far cry from the current edition of Vance. The man running for vice president, who is himself married to the daughter of foreign-born parents, now incites fear of immigrants with false claims of feline feasts and doggy dinners. When he’s not lying on the campaign trail, he’s voting against expanding the child tax credit in the Senate.

In some ways, Vance’s sycophancy is worse than those initially drawn to Trump. While some folks may have been bamboozled by years of PR work extolling the business genius of Trump (who bankrupted six businesses), Vance was not. He saw what Trump was clearly and accurately, and for years advocated against him.

Then one day, he threw in the towel. He couldn’t stop Trump, so he joined him. Perhaps this version of Vance was there all along, just waiting to emerge.

Either way, the release of the Trump campaign dossier doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know: There’s no principle JD Vance won’t abandon if it gets him one step closer to the presidency.

Trump’s supporters keep walking out of his rallies. Undecided voters should watch his campaign events because the media coverage doesn’t do them justice.

This is not the 2015 version of Trump, which was bad enough, railing against criminals, drugs, and rapists entering the country.

It’s not even the 2020 version of Trump, who spurred a violent insurrection and caused thousands of needless deaths by mismanaging and misleading Americans about the pandemic, urging people to inject bleach and other unproven therapies to combat COVID-19.

At 78, the current version of Trump is dangerous and unhinged. His rallies consist of 90 minutes or more of incoherent ramblings laced with insults and threats. There is no talk of policy or even a concept of a plan to improve the lives of average Americans.

It’s just one long, angry rant filled with hyperbole and lies. At a rally in Erie on Sunday, Trump falsely claimed Vice President Kamala Harris was “mentally disabled” and that she should be “impeached and prosecuted” for her handling of the border.

Never mind that migrant crossings are at the lowest level since 2020, and Trump pressured Republican lawmakers to kill a bipartisan border deal earlier this year that would have gone a long way to boosting security.

Trump just prattles on, falsely accusing immigrants of wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder, and kill the people of the United States of America.” During his nearly two-hour speech in Erie, he mused about allowing “one rough hour” of police violence to crack down on crime.

Often missing from Trump’s speeches are facts. FBI statistics show a historic drop in crime, while decades of research show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens. Trump tries to scare voters by warning of World War III and a stock market crash — even as stock indexes hit record highs.

On Monday, Trump falsely claimed President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to calls from governors in states devastated by Hurricane Helene.

But, in fact, Biden spoke with the governors in the storm-ravaged states. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters, “The president just called me yesterday afternoon” and “offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly.”

As the election nears, Trump is counting on anger, fear, lies, and insults to win over voters. Warning: This is not the same old Trump.

This is a bedlamite, filled with hate, detached from reality, and out for revenge.

The Homestretch is an occasional column by members of The Inquirer Editorial Board exploring the stakes in the 2024 presidential race.