 Trump's age. He has a deep connection with the Republican base. He came to prominence nationally in 2016, writing a book about his upbringing called Hillbilly Elegy, his memoir. Vance served in the Marines and was deployed to Iraq. He has a law degree from Yale. And even though he was a fierce Trump critic in 2016, calling him such things as cultural heroine, and even in a text message to a friend, America's Hitler,