BS BULLETIN:

• Vanity Fair reports JD Vance reached out to Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 election and eventually spoke directly with top adviser Jake Sullivan.
• An intermediary says Vance urged Clinton to campaign differently in crucial Midwestern states as he sought to stop Donald Trump.
• Vance’s spokesperson disputes that characterization, saying he was pushing politicians in both parties to pay attention to working-class communities.

Long before he became Donald Trump’s vice president, JD Vance reportedly made a remarkable back-channel appeal to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

A new Vanity Fair profile by journalist Chris Whipple reports that Vance repeatedly sought contact with Clinton’s team during the 2016 election and eventually spoke directly with senior Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan.

According to an unnamed intermediary quoted by Vanity Fair, Vance initially asked to be connected with Sullivan.

The intermediary says Vance persisted after being told Sullivan was too busy.

Vance’s message, according to that source, was blunt: He disliked Clinton, but opposed Trump even more and believed Clinton was in danger of losing an election she could still win.

Vance reportedly urged the Clinton campaign to concentrate on Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — states where he believed Democrats were losing touch with working-class voters.

His advice reportedly included getting Clinton into those states rather than spending time with celebrities elsewhere and addressing her support for the Iraq War.

The conversation wasn’t merely relayed through an intermediary. Whipple reports that Vance eventually spoke directly with Sullivan approximately six weeks before the election. That discussion reportedly came after Clinton’s controversial “basket of deplorables” remark about some Trump supporters.

Vance urged the campaign to repair the damage from the comment and change its message to working-class voters, according to the report.

Vance’s opposition to Trump at the time is no secret.

In 2016, the future vice president was a prominent Trump critic and ultimately voted for independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin rather than Trump or Clinton.

But Vance’s office disputes Vanity Fair’s characterization of his contact with Clinton’s campaign.

Spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said Vance never worked for a campaign and had urged both Republicans and Democrats to care about working-class communities such as his hometown of Middletown, Ohio. “We 100 percent reject the characterization that he was trying to help Hillary win,” Van Kirk told Vanity Fair.

Whipple, however, told NPR Wednesday that his reporting indicates Vance was privately trying to help Clinton defeat Trump.

Ten years later, the political relationship could hardly look more different.

Trump endorsed Vance’s successful 2022 Senate campaign, selected him as his running mate in 2024 and today has Vance serving beside him in the White House.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

• Vanity Fair — God and Vance at Yale
• Mediaite — Vance reportedly advised Clinton campaign on beating Trump
• NPR — Chris Whipple discusses his Vance reporting
• People — Vance reportedly sought to help Clinton campaign in 2016
• The Independent — Vance’s reported contact with Clinton campaign