Former President Donald Trump announced Monday that Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will be his running mate for the 2024 presidential election.

“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

In the post, Trump lists some of Vance’s achievements, including the senator’s time in the Marine Corps, his educational background from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, as well as how Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy “became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country.”

“J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond,” Trump wrote in the post.

Vance defeated then-Democratic Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan during the 2022 election cycle after, as my colleague Tristan Justice reported, receiving an “11th-hour endorsement” from Trump that April. The endorsement helped bump Vance’s spot in the Republican primary “from a distant third” to first, Justice reported, citing RealClearPolitics.

Ohio is traditionally a bellwether state with no president carrying the Electoral College since 1960 without winning Ohio, though Trump notably lost the Electoral College in 2020 despite winning

Jack Black, who has endorsed President Joe Biden, burst into laughter after his bandmate joked about Saturday’s assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

Black sang “Happy Birthday” and presented a birthday cake to his “Tenacious D” bandmate Kyle Gass during a Sydney, Australia, performance Sunday night. Video footage posted to X shows what happened next.

“Make a wish,” Black said after the song.

“Don’t miss Trump next time,” Gass responded.

Applause and laughter erupted from the crowd while Black also laughed at the joke.

This happened one night after a gunman attempted to assassinate the former president, shooting him in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shot also killed a rally attendee and injured others.

Jack Black’s Anti-Trump History

Black called Trump an “evil f-cking warlock” in an interview with Conan O’Brien in 2017, saying the then-president stole the comedy approach from his band “Tenacious D,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“It’s like he saw us and said, ‘I’m going to use that technique,’” Black said at the time. “Now, when we go out and perform Tenacious D I always have a twinge of guilt because it’s like this evil f-cking warlock stole our magic and took out all the irony. … And it worked, and now he’s destroying the universe.”

In 2018, Black called Trump “a piece of sh-t” during the Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony.

In 2020, Black advertised a podcast called “Bobbo Supreme,” an “obvious and intended” mockery of the Trump presidency

Former President Donald Trump officially tapped Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, as his 2024 running mate on Monday. The Republican candidate’s decision was no doubt a strategic one made with the recent attempt on his life in mind.

Vice presidents have always played an important role in American history. The position as POTUS’ successor, however, has become far more significant in recent weeks after this year’s top two presidential candidates survived an attempted assassination and an attempted political coup.

The Saturday shot heard around the world wasn’t the first time Trump has faced a targeted attack meant to take him out of the race for the White House, and it almost certainly won’t be the last.

Democrats have spent the last eight years prepping for assassination by trying to smear, usurp, bankrupt, de-ballot, and jail their top political opponent. If they should finally succeed, Trump needs a trusted right hand who American voters can trust to handle the fallout without becoming controlled opposition.

While he’s wavered on key pro-life issues such as when he offered a full-fledged endorsement of the dangerous drug responsible for more than half of the nation’s abortions, Vance, unlike many Republicans, has signaled a willingness to take on the fight against deep state lawfare and Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice.  

The 39-year-old may have only served a third of his first six-year Senate term, but he has garnered Trump’s trust as someone who is “strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers