Longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is behind a series of anonymous criticisms over the decision to pick Ohio senator JD Vance as the former president’s running mate, according to a report.
Conway, who managed Trump’s 2016 campaign and served as an official counselor in his White House, allegedly favored Marco Rubio and has been airing criticisms of Vance in the press and among fellow Republicans since, according to twenty people associated with the campaign and larger Trump machine, who spoke with the publication.
The discontent was voiced regularly, including at a meeting at Fox News where Conway allegedly said Trump would choose Vance “over my dead body,” and later criticisms Conway shared while the GOP was in Milwaukee for the nominating convention.
The hits on Vance are “100 percent from Kellyanne,” one unnamed source told The Bulwark.
For her part, Conway denied the allegations in the story.
“When it comes to concerned people questioning the vetting or selection of JD Vance, the calls are coming in, not going out,” she told the outlet.
“I’m not anti-Vance. I was pro-Rubio,” she added.
Whether Conway was the source of the criticisms, it’s a fact that the wider GOP world has been vocally unsure of Vance’s elevation to the Republican ticket, a decision reached while Joe Biden was still in the race.
Once Biden bowed out, the political calculus changed, according to some in the party.
One House Republican told Axios, “The road got a lot harder. He was the only pick that wasn’t the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that.”
The Trump campaign has found itself on the back foot, having to defend Vance’s past criticisms of Trump as “America’s Hitler,” Vance’s references to childless women as “cat ladies,” and the Ohio leader’s endorsement of Project 2025, a thinktank-driven blueprint document for a far-right Trump second term.
The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.