Former President Donald Trump just named Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his 2024 running mate, and the country’s largest labor federation is already using The Lever’s coverage of Vance to declare the move “A corporate CEO’s dream and a worker’s nightmare.”

For years, we have been pointing out Vance’s hypocrisies and what they mean for the American people. 

Vance authored the 2016 blockbuster memoir Hillbilly Elegy and fashioned himself as a “conservative outsider” fighting for everyday people. But during his 2022 U.S. Senate campaign, we revealed that the one-time venture capitalist counted himself among the elite few able to take advantage of a notorious carried-interest tax loophole that allows private equity and hedge fund moguls to pay a fraction of what they’d otherwise owe on their income.

J.D. Vance’s Wall Street Tax Dodge
The faux-populist GOP Senate candidate, J.D. Vance, structured his finances to take advantage of a notorious tax loophole — one he could help preserve if he wins.
The LeverJulia Rock

In 2023, following our coverage of lax railroad safety regulations and the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Vance co-authored the Railway Safety Act, designed to quickly improve the poor rail conditions that contributed to the disaster in his home state. 

“Through this legislation, Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again,” Vance said at the time.

But three months later, we exposed that Vance had since quietly amended his own legislation to delay the safety reforms at the request of rail and chemical industry lobbyists. 

J.D. Vance Helped Lobbyists Weaken His Rail Safety Bill
The Ohio senator quietly delayed the timeline for safer tank cars that regulators say could help prevent train spills like the one in East Palestine.
The LeverJulia Rock

In its statement on Trump’s running-mate announcement, the AFL-CIO labor federation cited our coverage on Vance to argue that the senator would be “nothing more than a rubber stamp for [Trump’s] anti-worker vision” and would help usher in “a corporate CEO’s dream and a worker’s nightmare.”

Before he became a rabid Trump supporter, Vance wrote in The Atlantic that instead of believing Trump’s false promises to help the country, “I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other.”

We agree. Together, we have the power to hold Vance and his cohorts accountable. That fight starts now.