MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had picked Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate, sending a strong signal about the future direction of the Republican Party as Trump indicates he is seeking to cement his movement by anointing an ideological successor.

The long-anticipated announcement, which came on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, capped months of speculation about Trump’s decision, as his shortlist had narrowed to Vance as well as two more traditional picks: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

“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 on Monday afternoon.

In choosing Vance, a 39-year-old former Trump critic turned MAGA stalwart elected to the Senate in 2022, Trump is now elevating a fierce defender of his populist agenda who has worked to pull the upper chamber in a more isolationist direction.

The pick could have implications for key foreign policy decisions if Trump is elected, particularly with regard to Ukraine. One of the most outspoken opponents of funding Ukraine in the Senate, Vance, a former Marine, has voiced skepticism of foreign aid and is generally averse to American engagement abroad.

Vance has otherwise sought to demonstrate that he is supportive of Israel and its relationship with the U.S., most recently during a May speech at an event co-hosted by the isolationist Quincy Institute, where  he differentiated his positions on Ukraine from his Middle East policy views.

“It’s sort of weird that this town assumes that Israel and Ukraine are exactly the same,” Vance said in his address. “They’re not, of course, and I think it’s important to analyze them in separate buckets.”

He also expressed support for expanding the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement in the Middle East, as a counterweight to Iran. “That allows us to spend less time and resources on the Middle East and focus more on East Asia,” he said in the speech. 

But his non-interventionist rhetoric has still raised concerns among some pro-Israel donors and GOP hawks who have privately and publicly questioned the tenability of his approach in recent months. In April, Vance was one of 15 GOP senators who voted against a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which passed with bipartisan support.

Eric Levine, a top GOP donor and a board member with the Republican Jewish Coalition, said in an interview with Jewish Insider before Trump had made his pick that he is uncomfortable with Vance’s foreign policy views, arguing that the Ohio senator’s broader commitment to American disengagement is “antithetical” to a pro-Israel agenda.

“J.D. Vance is not someone I can support,” Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, confirmed in an email to JI shortly after Trump had announced his pick. “It’s not that he is uninterested in the fate of Ukraine. It is that he is uninterested in the values that make America great.“

Pletka added that it is “not enough to be pro-Israel right now,” claiming that Vance’s efforts to balance his stances on Ukraine and the Middle East have been unconvincing. “So today, Israel is fine, and Ukraine is terrible,” she said. “Tomorrow Israel will be terrible, and China will be fine.”

Despite such criticism, Vance, the author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, has several supporters in the pro-Israel community, including the RJC, which in a statement released on Monday expressed confidence that he “will always stand with the Jewish community and with America’s key strategic ally Israel.”

In a separate statement to JI, former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), another RJC board member, said that Vance “has a long track record of effectively supporting Israel and the Jewish people,” adding that the first-term senator “has cosponsored many bills and resolutions standing strongly with Israel, opposing Hamas, and advocating for much-needed aid to our greatest ally in the Middle East. 

Gary Schottenstein, a business leader and Jewish activist in Columbus, said he has “personally met with” Vance “many times over the past two years,” and knows him “to be a genuine friend of the Jewish people and Israel.”

“I’ve known J.D. since before he was elected to the Senate and we’ve discussed his support for Israel many times,” Jason Wuliger, a pro-Israel activist in Cleveland, recently told JI, noting that Vance “has has been consistent throughout” their relationship. 

“No one but Senator Vance could have given his recent speech to the Quincy Institute providing a strong and compelling argument for why America must stand by Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East,” Wuliger added. “I am grateful to him for using his platform to stand by Israel.”