Trump: People who love family will support JD Vance
Former President Trump joins 'The Ingraham Angle' to discuss his upcoming outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, following the shooting and responds to criticism over his vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Sen. J.D. Vance's “Hillbilly Elegy” returned to the top spot as the best-selling book in the U.S. this week, and sources close to the campaign told Fox News Digital that this shows voters are interested in meeting former President Trump's running mate.
Vance's memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was originally published in June 2016, regained the top spot on major bestseller lists this week, including those of the New York Times, Publisher's Weekly and USA Today.
JD VANCE SAYS 'ANTI-FAMILY' DEMOCRATS TOOK 'CHILDLESS CAT LADY' COMMENT OUT OF CONTEXT: 'LEFTWING LIE'
A film adaptation of the memoir, released in 2020, has also seen a surge in viewership since Trump named Vance as his running mate. The film has risen to No. 9 on Netflix’s top 10 movies list. A source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that viewers have watched nearly six million hours of the film.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance hugs his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance during the Republican National Convention, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Vance's commercial success comes as pundits and many on the left have criticized him in recent days for a comment Vance made in 2021 about childless women.
But a source close to the Trump campaign said the renewed success of “Hillbilly Elegy” only shows that “ordinary Americans are rushing to get copies of his personal memoirs to get to know the man based on his own words, without any media filter.”
“The mainstream media has been tearing its hair out, insisting that JD Vance had a historically bad week on the campaign trail,” said a source close to the Trump campaign. “In reality, millions of people who have completely lost faith in the media have rushed to buy copies of 'Hillbilly Elegy' or gathered with their families to watch the movie at home.”
TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISOR STRIKES LEFT: TAKING VANCE'S 'CAT LADY' COMMENTS 'BLATANTLY OUT OF CONTEXT'
Former President Trump and Sen. JD Vance applaud during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Callaghan O'Hare)
More recently, Vance has had to deal with headaches when a 2021 interview resurfaced in which he said: “In reality, we are governed in this country, through the Democrats, through our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless, cat-loving women who are miserable with their own lives and the choices they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
He then specifically mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as part of this group in that interview.
This week, the Harris campaign and several other prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Actress Jennifer Aniston and others criticized Vance, accusing him of devaluing women who do not have children or cannot have them under normal circumstances.
Vance said Democrats had taken his comments “out of context and blown them out of proportion, which is what they always do because they don't have an agenda to follow.”
Sen. JD Vance arrives for the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
VANCE ATTACKS HARRIS FOR QUESTIONING HIS LOYALTY TO THE UNITED STATES: 'WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?'
A spokesperson for Vance told Fox News Digital that “left-wing media outlets have misrepresented Senator Vance's words and created a false narrative about where he stands on the issues.”
“As he clearly stated, he was talking about left-wing politicians who support policies that are explicitly anti-child and anti-family,” said Vance spokesman Taylor Van Kirk. “The media can obsess over this all they want, but he's not going to back down when it comes to advocating for policies that protect parents' rights and encourage people to have more children.”
And Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita defended Vance, saying critics are being “absolutely absurd.”
“We're fighting for the working women of America, for the forgotten people of the middle class. JD Vance is the perfect representation of that,” LaCivita told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade. “They know that. They're scared to death… They're going to sell fiction and we're going to have to deal with that as we move forward.”
