Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo has shared a social media post in which he has detailed Ohio Senator J.D. Vance's turnaround from a fervent critic of Donald Trump to vice presidential running mate.
On Monday, Trump announced Vance as his pick for vice president on his Truth Social platform as the Republican National Convention was set to kick off in Milwaukee. Vance has previously been critical of Trump.
In a message to a former college roommate in February 2016, Vance wrote: "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a****** like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler. How's that for discouraging?"
In October 2016, during Trump's first presidential campaign, Vance said in an interview with talk show host Charlie Rose that he was a "Never Trump guy. I never liked him."
However, eight years after emerging as one of Trump's harshest critics—and branding his policy proposals "immoral to absurd"—Vance is now on the Republican ticket alongside the former president.
Ruffalo, a longtime Trump critic who is backing President Joe Biden in this year's election, took to X to share an article from the website Zeteo that detailed the numerous disparaging comments Vance had made about Trump in the past.
"For JD Vance, it has been a remarkable—and remarkably shameless—transformation from 'Never Trump guy' into Trump loyalist, Trump booster, and, now, finally, Trump running mate," read a post from progressive-leaning outlet Zeteo's X account.
Sharing the post and accompanying link with his own base of followers, Avengers star Ruffalo wrote on July 15: "Here is where the 'America's Hitler' language really started from: Trump's own running mate."
As of press time, the post has garnered more than 200,000 views. Newsweek has contacted a representative of the Trump campaign for comment.
In the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt on Donald Trump, while the overwhelming majority of politicians voiced their support and condemned the violence, some also placed the blame on Democratic political rhetoric.
Former Hawaii Congresswoman—and at the time a potential candidate to be Trump's running mate—Tulsi Gabbard wrote on X: "The assassination attempt on President Trump is a logical consequence of repeatedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler. After all, if Trump truly was another Hitler, wouldn't it be their moral duty to assassinate him?"
Vance, 39, first rose to fame in 2016, after publishing the memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The book recounted his childhood in poverty in Middletown, Ohio, and his journey to the prestigious Yale Law School.
The politician said he did not vote for Trump in 2016. In now-deleted posts shared to X, Vance called onetime business mogul Trump an "idiot" and "reprehensible."
However, Vance has since changed his tune on Trump and landed the former president's endorsement during his run for Senate in 2022.
Vance addressed his past criticism of Trump during an interview with Fox News in June.
"Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump," he told host Bret Baier. "I didn't think he was gonna be a good president, Bret. He was a great president. And it's one of the reasons why I'm working so hard to make sure he gets a second term."
Vance has become one of Trump's most outspoken supporters. He has said he would not have certified the 2020 election results in Congress on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot. He has also expressed skepticism about U.S. support of Ukraine in its war with Russia.
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