PHOENIX — Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance slammed Liz Cheney and John McCain’s son as “rejects of the Republican Party” after the two announced they were backing Vice President Kamala Harris for president this week.
The Ohio senator, 40, told The Post Thursday that Trump’s campaign represents “the big tent party” and dismissed the pair as figures who no longer have pull in the GOP.
“The fact that Kamala Harris has gotten a couple of rejects from the Republican Party who have no sway in our party anymore to endorse her, I think, speaks low of them and doesn’t say anything great about her campaign,” he said during a campaign stop at the Arizona Biltmore hotel in Phoenix.
Cheney, who used to represent Wyoming in Congress and is the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, said she would be voting for Harris because she thinks Trump poses a danger.
She’s been a fierce critic of the former president after he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election that led to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Lt. Jimmy McCain, the son of late Republican Sen. John McCain, revealed Tuesday that he is now a registered Democrat who will vote for Harris.
McCain, who spent 17 years in the military, said he made the switch after Trump’s appearance at Arlington Cemetery last month and accused the 78-year-old of using his visit to the nation’s largest burial ground as a campaign event.
Vance told reporters in a gaggle following his Post interview that he didn’t think it mattered what the relatives of former pols think of a candidate, and believes that if the elder McCain were alive today, he would not be happy with the Biden-Harris administration.
Harris has said she would pick a Republican to serve in her cabinet if she won — a suggestion Vance scoffed at.
“I think when she says she wants a Republican in her cabinet, she means a person like Liz Cheney, which Liz Cheney’s not really a Republican anymore, she hasn’t been for years,” he said.
The senator insisted that a wide swath of politicians are backing Trump, including GOP establishment figures such as his one-time 2024 rival — and former UN Ambassador — Nikki Haley and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, as well as former independent presidential candidate and Democratic dynasty heir Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
“We’re the big tent party of common sense,” Vance said.
Vance also confirmed that he plans on sitting down with conservative media figure Tucker Carlson later this month in Pennsylvania after the former Fox News host received backlash for hosting a podcaster, Darryl Cooper, who claimed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II and downplayed the Nazi’s atrocities.
“Tucker is a guy, agree with him or disagree with him, he’s willing to talk with anybody, he’s willing to have conversations with a lot of people and he’s always gonna do what he wants to do,” Vance said.
“You don’t have to agree with him, you don’t have to agree with what people in his interviews said but I believe in free speech, I believe to air these debates, to disagree publicly, but not to censure people and I think that’s Tucker’s attitude.”
Vance noted he also had an interview with Carlson Thursday.
Carlson commended Cooper as “the best and most honest popular historian” in the US even as Cooper made several outrageous claims.
He referred to Churchill as “the chief villain of the Second World War” as he made the argument against the world leader’s actions.
He also spewed that Germany was unprepared to house millions of “prisoners of war” when it launched the war “and just threw these people into camps and millions of people ended up dead there.”
The statements from Carlson and Cooper drew condemnation across the board, including from Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who called them “truly revolting.”
Vance, who is in the middle of his first term in the US Senate, was picked by Trump to be his running mate in July.
He’s faced a series of criticism since, and according to polls, isn’t as popular as Harris’ veep pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has faced his own backlash to a series of mistruths he’s been confronted with, including embellishing his military career.
But Vance doesn’t put much stock in those numbers as he vowed that he and Trump would make their case to the American people.
“Voters make these decisions, and the poll that I’m worried about is the one in November,” he said.
