JD Vance’s Old ‘Never Trump’ Clip Gets Hip-Hop Remix, Blows Up on TikTok

Senator JD Vance might have joined Donald Trump as his running mate on the Republican ticket, but he wasn’t always a supporter of the former US president let alone a fan. Vance once referred to himself as a “Never Trump guy” the year before Trump assumed office. Fast forward to today, a 22-second Petey Pablo hip-hop melody that has been blended with a Vance audio clip from years ago is one of the most popular songs on TikTok. The words from Vance’s 2016 interview with Charlie Rose, during which he promoted his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, were picked up by DJ duo Casa Di and Steve Terrell to make the audio clip.

According to the New York Times, since its creation in July by two independent music producers, the song has been included in over 8,500 TikTok videos.

Moreover, the official account for the campaign, @KamalaHQ, reposted the original excerpt from the interview.

Zelf, a TikTok-focused social video analytics business, reports that videos using sound have received over 40 million views altogether.

Vance is heard stating, “I’m a never-Trump guy. I never liked him.”

Some of the videos from TikTok have even begun circulating on other social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter).

Vance’s statements are not the only ones that have been remixed. Kamala Harris’s “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” statement, as well as her trademark laugh, sparked various remixes, including one featuring Kesha, which previously became a nightclub thing.

According to the NY Times, Vance’s spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said, “Cringe,” in reaction to the TikTok video. Meanwhile, the spokesperson for Harris, Seth Schuster, stated that the team was utilising viral trends to increase its network of supporters and to “bring the conversation about the stakes of this election to the places a lot of our voters are getting their news from.”

Speaking to the media outlet, Terrell said they discovered Vance’s voice to be “sort of melodic in a sense” after hearing him talk in a video.

“We were like, what if we put this to a catchy beat or something,” Casa Di added. He continued by saying that the mashup took them three hours to make.