The Trump campaign is reaffirming the former president's confidence in running mate JD Vance and dispelling criticism of the vice presidential candidate's past comments on women. Trump co-campaign manager and GOP political strategist Chris LaCivita assured listeners of "The Brian Kilmeade Show" Friday that the campaign is fighting for "working women" and said Vance is a "perfect representation" of that effort.
TRUMP SAYS HE HAD ‘AUTOMATIC CHEMISTRY’ WITH VANCE DESPITE PAST CRITICISMS: ‘HE DIDN’T KNOW ME
CHRIS LACIVITA: There are 1,000,001 different interpretations. The fact of the matter is it's been blatantly taken out of context. As a matter of fact, there was a discussion today where the follow-up, the Democrats' follow-up attack is that JD Vance believes that only people with children should get certain tax breaks. Well, that's called the child care tax credit. So now we have the Democrat Party and the Kamala Harris campaign on record as opposing something that's been law for years, which is the child care tax credit. So I mean, look, we expect this kind of thing… There have been actresses like Jennifer Aniston to come out and make these attacks. Look, we just sit down. We're about fighting for the working women of the United States, the forgotten people of the middle class. JD Vance is the perfect representation of that. They know it. It scares the hell out of them. And, they're going to peddle in fiction, and we're just going to have to deal with it as we go forward.
BRIAN KILMEADE: As a campaign, you're not against childless women?
CHRIS LACIVITA: No. That's absurd. It's absolutely absurd… We're very comfortable. JD was the best pick. The president loves him. We love him. He's a great part of this team. We're going to continue fighting alongside of him to make America great again. And again, he is a very important part of this campaign. He is a central part. And we're thrilled to have him.
Former President Trump said he had "automatic chemistry" with his running mate in a Fox News interview on Monday.
Trump dismissed the pair's past disagreements as a misunderstanding before they got to know each other, saying Vance is now among his strongest allies.
"Originally, JD was probably not for me, but he didn’t know me," Trump said in the "Jesse Watters Primetime" interview. "And then when we got to know each other, he liked me maybe more than anybody liked me."
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The former president continued, "And he would stick up for me. And he’d fight for the worker as much as I fight for the worker. We just had an automatic chemistry."
Vance was an early critic of Trump in 2016, when the former president was campaigning to eventually beat Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
At the time, Vance had dismissed Trump as "cultural heroin" who was leading the disenfranchised working class into a "very dark place."
Fox News' Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.
