J.D. Vance Has a Problem on His Face

Can a VP aspirant with a beard find acceptance from a candidate who hates facial hair?

(Composite / Photos: Andrew Spear/GettyImages)

J.D. VANCE IS THE BEST BET on the predictive markets to be Donald Trump’s running mate. But an only-in-MAGAville issue might stand in the Ohio Republican’s way: facial hair.

“J.D. has a beard. But Trump is a clean-shaven guy. He just doesn’t like facial hair,” a Trump confidant, who wants Vance on the ticket, told The Bulwark. “You just never know.”

So why not shave his face? It’s probably out of the question for Vance because of how young he is and looks. The Ohio senator turns 40 on August 2 and would be the third-youngest vice president to serve. But Trump wants someone who is experienced—or at least looks experienced. And “without the beard, Vance looks like he’s 12,” said another Trump adviser.

Trump hasn’t raised the beard issue with Vance, insiders say, but like a number of ladies of MAGAville, Trump has repeatedly commented favorably on his “beautiful” blue eyes and long eyelashes (just Google “J.D. Vance eye” and links galore auto populate on speculation he wears eyeliner—which his team denies).

Such are the considerations of Trump. The ex-president has a certain—shall we say, unique—set of specifications when it comes to charting out his political course. “Central casting” is crucial. That’s already been apparent in how his shortlist has been put together.

Trump likes the way Vance promotes and defends him on television. Same with the two other likely frontrunners, Marco Rubio and Doug Burgum, according to a dozen sources who have spoken to Trump or his top-level advisers and who discussed the conversations on condition of anonymity with The Bulwark. Both Rubio and Burgum have a look in common: they’re beardless.

Trump’s aversion to facial hair is legendary.

On Father’s Day in 2020, Trump told his son Don Jr. to shave his Covid quarantine beard and compared it unfavorably to Ted Cruz and Rand Paul’s. And in 2016, the Washington Post reported, John Bolton might not have made the cut for secretary of state because of his trademarked mustache. But then Trump’s pick for national security advisor, Michael Flynn, fell apart. And Trump seemed to overcome his facial trichophobia by choosing Bolton as a replacement.

“Look, this mustache thing, well, my father had a mustache,” Trump told Bolton at a meeting in Mar-a-Lago, according to Bolton who relayed the vignette to The Bulwark.

“That was like him saying, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I’m not sure it was a Freudian thing. But that was the sum total of the conversation,” said Bolton.

Whether a full beard would be simply too much for Trump, Bolton was honest: “I don’t know.”

The fact that Vance’s facial hair has become a thing is both trivial and significant because it indicates that Trump is, to a large degree, partial towards the political newcomer. Trump has a close and friendly relationship with Vance as well as Burgum. But Burgum is sometimes a bit too wonky and loquacious for the ex-president, who likes to (for lack of a better verb) bro out with the boys and do the talking. And North Dakota Trump supporters recently began taking aim at their governor for being insufficiently MAGA.

Rubio had a close professional working relationship with Trump. But he’s a fellow Florida Man, and Trump still seems hung up on the Twelfth Amendment limitation on a presidential candidate and his running mate hailing from the same state.

“If Marco doesn’t get it, it’s because of his residency,” said one insider.

But Trump, who had to debate Rubio in 2016, has suggested to others he believes the senator would do well against Kamala Harris. The vice-presidential debate has taken on increased importance now that President Joe Biden and his campaign are repeatedly telling the media and members of his own party that he won’t quit the race after his horrible debate performance June 27.

The Democratic drama has given Trump extra time to mull his choices. He doesn’t want news of his VP pick to interfere with the circular firing squad across the aisle. Also, Trump doesn’t really see much value in a running mate anyway (“he says he doesn’t need one,” according to an adviser), so he was in no rush to name a No. 2 and now could wait until as late as Monday, when Republican National Convention rules basically require him to make the decision.

"I'd love to do it during the convention. My people say that's a little complicated," Trump said Monday night on Fox News’s Hannity. He said he hadn’t made a final decision and indicated that Biden’s troubles were a factor. 

Trump has a rally in the Miami-area city of Doral on Tuesday, about 15 minutes from Rubio’s home. But insiders say it’s likelier Trump names his pick later in the week, either on Truth Social or at a Saturday rally near Pittsburgh in Butler County, Pennsylvania. That’s just across the state lines from Vance’s home state, though those same insiders say that’s just a coincidence. 

If someone gets the nod over Vance, it’ll be by a whisker.

Something Shakin’ on MAGAville Shakedown Street

A LOT OF ATTENTION is being placed this week on whom Trump will pick as his VP and his handling of this post-debate Biden drama. But if you want a real sense of the current id of the MAGA movement, you should have joined me at the Gulf Coast Gun & Outdoors shop in Milton, Florida last week. 

It was there that Matt Gaetz hosted a campaign event with Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen vigilante who was acquitted on grounds of self-defense after he killed two people during the 2020 Kenosha riots. Because in MAGA America, any friend of the devil is a friend of theirs.

As they awaited the gentlemen of honor, hundreds of true believers packed the parking lot, braving the 95-degree heat baking the concrete as they sifted through the various totems of their movement in what could be best described as a MAGA Shakedown Street. A pre-teen boy’s parents purchased him a tank top that read I’M VOTING FOR THE FELON with Trump’s mugshot emblazoned across the torso. A boomer walked behind them in a shirt featuring the same picture with WANTED FOR PRESIDENT flanking Trump’s grimace. There were more MAGA attitude shirts where that came from. So, so, SO many more.  

“White, Christian, Straight, and Republican.” 

“I want mean tweets, cheap gas, and sleepy Joe to kiss my ass.” 

And in honor of our host: “Be Offended: Gaetz 2024.”

The substance of Gaetz and Rittenhouse’s remarks offered much for those of us in the big middle to fret over: airhorn attacks on how DEI is a modern “slave ship” to an audience that, to my eye, contained a lone black person. Mockery of Republicans who prefer a bipartisan approach as “Democrats in Drag.” A radical pro-gun agenda including calls for “open carry,” loosening background checks, repealing red-flag laws, and legalizing all weapon purchases for 18-year-olds. (Rittenhouse is not, in this crowd, what one calls a cautionary tale.) 

But the tone of the attendees I spoke to did not match the anger of their merch. They were, if anything, optimistic. 

I could not find a voter who would even contemplate the possibility that Trump would lose in November. One of the event volunteers, Jim, told me that he believes we are on the precipice of a “revival” both for Christianity and Trump. The only person I spoke to who thought it made any strategic difference whether Biden remains the Democratic nominee was Gaetz’s father, Don, a former state senate president now reincarnated as a candidate. “All I care about is what’s good for the Republicans and that’s keeping Biden,” he told me. 

In one sense, this assuredness speaks to the dire state of the Biden campaign. Many of these people may have deluded themselves about the result of the 2020 election, but their sense for how the current campaign is going is in line with the polls. But I couldn’t shake one underlying sense of dread. 

If somehow, a defiant Biden manages to transform his debate humiliation into a comeback—if he manages to fortify the Blue Wall and squeak out a narrow victory—the reaction from those assembled at the Gaetz gun show will not just be utter disbelief, but fury. And we have already seen what that fury can lead to.

– Tim Miller