Potential VP pick says he was vetted on questions that would disqualify Trump | US elections 2024

JD Vance, a rightwing senator vying to be Donald Trump’s running mate, has inadvertently revealed that as part of his vetting for the role, he was asked questions that might disqualify Trump himself.

Talking to Fox & Friends, the Republican senator for Ohio told co-host Steve Doocy that his team had been asked “for a number of things” as part of a traditional background check for the vice-president role, adding that “a number of people have been asked to submit this and that”.

Doocy interjected: “Like your taxes or something?” before raising the ante: “Your criminal background?”

Vance replied: “I don’t know everything they’ve been asked, yeah, but certainly like: ‘Have you ever committed a crime?’ ‘Have you ever lied about this?’”

The exchange elicited an immediate response on social media. Jen Psaki, the former Biden White House spokesperson – and now an anchor on MSNBC, posted that Trump “could not pass his own vetting materials for Vice President”. Others suggested that committing a crime or lying may be a requirement for a place on the ticket.

Trump himself was given a criminal record last month after he was convicted on 34 counts of document falsification relating to hush money paid to an adult film actor in an effort to win the 2016 presidential election.

He has also bucked a long-standing convention that presidential candidates release their tax returns, and earlier this year was ordered to pay a $464m penalty for fraudulently inflating property values.