JD Vance: Pat Buchanan “Influential” on Him, Agrees With Him on a Lot
During a 2021 interview with David Freiheit, who goes by Viva Frei on YouTube, JD Vance described his politics as being influenced by far right Holocaust denier Pat Buchanan:
"I read this book when I was maybe 15 years old called The Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan and that was a really influential book for me. Right in there were like times in my life where I've said, you know, I sort of, you know, disagreed with Pat Buchanan or more agreed with Pat Buchanan. And it's certainly more on the agreed with Pat Buchanan on a lot of these things, uh, these days. But that was a pretty influential book to me."
Buchanan has a documented history of antisemitic comments and once stated he didn’t believe it was possible for the Nazis to exterminate 850,000 Jews using gas chamber at Treblinka using diesel engines. Buchanan also claimed Treblinka wasn’t a German death camp despite historians estimating that 900,000 Jews will killed there.
JD Vance on the Viva Frei podcast
Viva Frei
Buchanan also hosted a forum on his website where Holocaust denier collaborated and posted their antisemitic theories. Buchanan is so far right, that Trump himself, during the 2000 Reform Party primary, called Buchanan a “neo-Nazi.” In an op-ed, Trump criticized Buchanan:
"On slow days, he attacks gays, immigrants, welfare recipients, even Zulus. When cornered, he says he's misunderstood."
During an interview on Meet the Press in 1999, Trump called Buchanan a "Hitler-lover" and "an antisemite." Trump continued:
"He doesn't like the Blacks. He doesn't like the gays. It's just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy."
So in other words, Trump who has himself moved further right since being a 2000 Reform Party candidate, has selected JD Vance as his running mate, a man who says he was heavily influenced by someone who Trump himself called a "Hitler-lover" and a "neo-Nazi." Trump picked JD Vance, a man who says he's more "on the agreed with" side of Pat Buchanan that not.
