Vance has always been comfortable in the public eye, starting with his job dealing with the media as a public-affairs officer in the Marines. As an author, commentator and candidate, he has left a long record — in blog posts, opinion columns and podcast appearances — of his evolving views, not just on Trump but also on issues like immigration and his vision for the country. In a 2021 podcast, for example, he said that Trump, if elected again, should “seize the institutions of the left,” “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat” in the U.S. government, “replace them with our people” and defy the Supreme Court if it tried to stop him.