When former President Trump called J.D. Vance to offer him the vice presidential spot, Vance nearly missed the call because his son was trying to show him Pokémon cards, the Ohio Republican senator explained in an interview on Friday.
Vance actually missed Trump's first call on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he explained on the Full Send podcast.
“I flew into Milwaukee and had no idea what was going on. There was no Wi-Fi on the plane, so it was about an hour's flight and when I landed I had like 350 messages,” Vance explained.
“One of them was from someone in the Trump campaign and it said, 'Hey, check your phone, you're about to get a really important call, make sure you don't miss it.' So I was like, 'Oh no.' I don't know if it was a good call or a bad call, but it was an important call,” he continued. “I got another message about an hour later from the same person saying, 'Hey, you just missed a really important call.'”
“I thought, 'Oh no, no thanks.' So I called Trump and said, 'Hey, what's going on?' And he said, 'JD, you missed a really important call, so we're going to have to call somebody else.' I was so nervous I nearly had a heart attack.” (RELATED: J.D. Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' Soars to the Top of the Charts After VP Release)
“The funny thing is, my 7-year-old son is with me in the hotel room and he's obsessed with Pokemon cards right now,” Vance explained. “He's trying to talk about Pikachu and I'm on the phone with Donald Trump, so I said, 'Son, shut up about Pikachu for 30 seconds. This is the most important phone call of my life.'”
Vance later explained that Trump had spoken with his son and asked to read the statement that would eventually be made public announcing Vance as his running mate.
“He asked his son, 'What do you think about that?' And he said, 'Yeah, that sounds pretty good.' And he said, 'Okay, fine,' and he hung up the phone. And five minutes later the statement was released, and my life was changed forever. And that's how it happened,” Vance concluded.
