Report: JD Vance Sought Meeting With Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Team to Warn About Trump

Vanity Fair reports that JD Vance — now Vice President and a prominent MAGA ally — attempted in 2016 to contact senior members of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to offer advice about how to counter Donald Trump’s populist appeal.

According to multiple people familiar with the conversations, Vance sought a connection to Jake Sullivan, then a senior policy adviser to Clinton. An intermediary recalled Vance calling and asking, "Can you put me in touch with Jake Sullivan?" The intermediary initially demurred, saying Sullivan was too busy running the campaign.

JD Vance and Donald Trump at the GOP midterm convention in Texas (Getty)

The meeting reportedly took place. Vance, then best known as the author of Hillbilly Elegy and for his ties to the Rust Belt and Appalachia, warned Clinton’s team that rising populist sentiment could cost key Midwestern states. He focused on the so-called "Blue Wall" — Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — and urged the campaign to engage Rust Belt voters directly.

"She needs to come here instead of being down with Beyoncé in Miami. She needs to come here and apologize for the Iraq War. Apologize for sending so many people, my community... whose sons and fathers died and everybody just forgot about them," one Vanity Fair source recalled Vance saying.

Another source close to Sullivan said Vance urged the campaign to "focus" on beating Trump and to repair the damage from Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark — a gaffe that was widely exploited by conservative media and Trump’s campaign.

Hillary Clinton, pictured in 2016 giving her concession speech after the election (EPA)

Clinton ultimately lost the four Rust Belt states Vance named, outcomes widely attributed to perceptions of her as part of the political establishment while Trump capitalized on populist anger.

Vance’s spokesperson denied to Vanity Fair that he was trying to help Clinton win. "We 100 percent reject the characterization that he was trying to help Hillary win," Taylor Van Kirk said. The Independent also sought comment from Vance’s office.

JD Vance now embraces the MAGA movement he once warned was led by a demagogue (AP)

But those close to the exchanges described a more complicated motive. One intermediary said Vance told him, "I hate Hillary. But I hate Trump more. Trump can't win. He can't win. Hillary's going to lose, but she doesn't have to," suggesting he wanted to prevent a Trump victory even while opposing Clinton.

Vance’s earlier criticism of Trump is on the record. His former Yale Law School roommate Josh McLaurin posted a 2016 text from Vance that called Trump a potential "America's Hitler" and warned that a demagogue could seize the support of lower-income, lower-education white voters if the Republican Party failed to address their concerns.

In recent years Vance has aligned with the MAGA movement he once warned about. In a June interview with Newsweek he described his political evolution and said his earlier assumptions about institutions and experts were incorrect.

What This Means

The Vanity Fair account highlights the complicated, evolving political trajectory of JD Vance: from a critic who attempted to warn Clinton’s team about Trump’s appeal to a later supporter of Trump-aligned politics. The story underlines how advisers and outside voices sought to influence Clinton’s strategy in battleground states still central to modern U.S. presidential politics.