Gov. Beshear, JD Vance trade barbs as Harris mulls VP pick

Beshear says Vance "has no conviction, but I guess his running mate has 34"

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) — Just one day after President Joe Biden stepped aside in his reelection bid, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear made the media rounds amid speculation he could become Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in November.

Beshear, in interviews with MSNBC and CNN on Monday, says he spoke with Harris a couple of hours after President Biden announced he would drop his reelection campaign.

Beshear offered a strong endorsement for Harris in her presidential run, also taking sharp aim at both former President Donald Trump and his newly-minted running mate, JD Vance.

“He ought to call the Vice President by her title. She earned it. She is Vice President Harris,” said to Kaitlan Collins in an interview that aired on CNN on Monday night. “They’re grasping for straws. Listen — JD Vance is a phony. He’s fake. I mean, he first says that Donald Trump is like Hitler, and now he’s acting like he’s Lincoln. I mean, the problem with JD Vance is he has no conviction, but I guess his running mate has 34.”

Vance — who was born in Middletown, Ohio, but has family roots from eastern Kentucky — hit back at Beshear, a scion of a Kentucky political family and son of a former governor.

“Eastern Kentucky will always have a special place in my heart,” Vance said, per a report from Politico’s Meridith McGraw. “It’s very weird to have a guy whose first job was at his dad’s law firm and inherited the governorship from his father criticize my origin story.”

Beshear then doubled down on his comments while speaking with Collins, saying again of the senator, “He ain’t from here.”

“He is not from Kentucky,” Beshear continued. “Listen, this is a guy who would come maybe in the summers for some period of time, or to weddings or funerals, and then he claims to be from Eastern Kentucky, tries to write a book about it, to profit off our people, and then he calls us lazy. And this makes me angry, but it especially makes me angry about our people in Eastern Kentucky. Listen, these are the hardworking coal miners that powered the Industrial Revolution, that helped build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen, helped us win two world wars, and he called them lazy, acting like he understands our culture and he’s one of us. He’s not. This is a guy who went out to Silicon Valley that’s trying to be an every man. He ain’t one of us.”

This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.