Vance Strains to Sell a Softer Trump

From the opening handshake, the Republican vice-presidential nominee sought to reinvent and repackage the record and views of the former president.

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Senator JD Vance said during the debate that former President Donald J. Trump had “governed in a bipartisan way.”

Picture this: It’s the biggest moment of your professional life — performed before an audience of millions — and you have to defend your boss.

He is colossally needy and notoriously thin skinned. He stoked a violent mob against your predecessor. Oh, and he’s providing a live play-by-play critique of your performance on his own personal social-media network. Your job? Soften his edges, while stroking his ego.

This is the awkward task America watched JD Vance try to pull off Tuesday night.

At a vice-presidential debate against his Democratic rival, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Mr. Vance attempted the high-wire act of defending Donald Trump better than Donald Trump. The performance amounted to an effort to reinvent one of the most polarizing figures in American political history, without openly rebuking any of his words, deeds or positions that have divided the nation.

It was, to put it mildly, a difficult exercise.

In Mr. Vance’s telling, a former president known for vicious attacks on his opponents and trafficking in conspiracy theories became a beacon of “common-sense wisdom” and bipartisan governance.

Mr. Trump’s support for strict state abortion bans became part of an attempt to make the Republican Party “pro-family in the fullest sense of the word.” Even though Mr. Trump tried — and failed — to repeal the Affordable Care Act dozens of times during his administration, Mr. Vance told the nation that his boss “salvaged Obamacare” by working across the aisle.

And as for Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his role in the violent and deadly siege on the Capitol on Jan. 6? Well, said Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump “peacefully gave over power” on Inauguration Day two weeks later.

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