JD Vance's Yale roommate says he leaked his 'America's Hitler' message about Trump to expose Vance's 'hypocrisy'

• In a private 2016 message to an old Yale roommate, JD Vance said Trump could be "America's Hitler."
• Josh McLaurin, the former roommate, released the message after Trump endorsed Vance in 2022.

JD Vance, now former President Donald Trump's running mate, once speculated in a 2016 message to a former college roommate that Trump could end up being "America's Hitler."

Vance had also written that year that Trump was "unfit" to be president, called him an "idiot," and described him as "cultural heroin."

At the time, Trump was running for the presidency for the first time.

Josh McLaurin, Vance's former roommate at Yale and now a Democratic state senator in Georgia, sat on the "America's Hitler" message for years before deciding to publish it in 2022, shortly after Trump endorsed Vance's Senate run.

In an interview with Business Insider, McLaurin said he released screenshots of the message to expose Vance's "hypocrisy" and the "gross inconsistencies" in his political career.

Now, the message, which also speculated that Trump could simply be a "cynical asshole like Nixon," is being used to highlight Vance's dramatic journey from "Never Trump" to loyal ally and running mate.

McLaurin told BI that he decided to leak it once Vance accepted Trump's endorsement for the Senate primary in Ohio in April 2022.

"I thought at that moment his reversal was complete, and the hypocrisy of what he had done would be the most apparent," he said.

McLaurin said he wanted to hold Vance accountable for "gross inconsistencies" in his conduct prior to his candidacy, believing it was crucial to do so when he was on the precipice of power.

Reflecting on their time at Yale Law School together, between 2010 and 2013, McLaurin said that he had a "small degree of faith" that Vance might one day be able to steer the Republican Party toward a more moderate path.

"He was very thoughtful; he did not tow the party line aggressively," McLaurin said.

He said Vance's comments about Trump in 2016 demonstrated that same thoughtfulness and a "deep amount of insight," which is why he felt comfortable reaching out to him in the first place.

Shortly after the conversation, McLaurin said they stopped communicating, and he observed Vance's shift to supporting Trump from afar.

"I guess he was radicalized to some extent by media and Democratic opposition to Trump," McLaurin said. "I think he was more upset by what he saw as attacks on Trump than he was in any way convicted by Trump's approach to politics."

Vance's team did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

McLaurin suggested that a personality trait he had observed in Vance could also have influenced the dramatic political evolution.

"I think that both JD and Trump derive a great deal of pleasure out of violating norms or rules that other politicians in the establishment were afraid of violating," he told BI.

"Anybody can go up onstage with Trump and say, 'Make America Great Again,' wear a red hat, and try to play the part," McLaurin said. "But only a handful of people genuinely enjoy dismantling the norms and the institutions that Americans have come to rely on."

He said he saw this behavior recently when Vance blamed President Joe Biden's campaign for the Trump assassination attempt, without evidence.

"What JD really wants to do most of all, I think, is prove that nobody can tell him not to say that," McLaurin said.