Awkward moment Fox News host confronts Trump VP contender J.D. Vance over past tweets comparing the candidate to Hitler

Sen. J.D. Vance says he was wrong about Donald Trump when he called him 'reprehensible' and compared him to Hitler.

The Ohio senator was confronted a series of his most incendiary tweets blasting Trump when Trump was seeking the White House and J.D. Vance was a 'never Trumper.'

Many of the digs already surfaced during Vance's run for the Senate in 2022, but they are getting new attention now that he is on Trump's list of potential vice presidential running mates.   

'You know, Senator, this is an evolution. And I know you've been asked about this before about past comments that you made about Donald Trump,' Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Vance before reading aloud some of his most eviscerating comments.

'I'm a never-Trump guy'; 'never liked him'; 'terrible candidate'; 'idiot if you voted for him'; 'might be America's Hitler'; 'might be a cynical a-hole'; 'cultural heroin'; 'noxious and reprehensible,' Baier said. The comments appeared in a graphic on the network broadcast, as the host asked how Vance would deal with his own past criticism if he were Trump's running mate.

'Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump,' said Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who has compared Donald Trump to Hitler and called him a moral disaster, but who now finds himself on Trump's short list to be vice presidential running mate

'Yeah, well, I think the simple answer is you've gotta respect the American people enough to just level with them,' he responded. 'Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump. I didn't think he was gonna be a good president, Bret. He was a great president. And it's one of the reasons why I'm working so hard to make sure he gets a second term.'

Then he sought to turn his own criticism about Trump into a parable about change, rather than what critics branded expediency. 

'I think you should – when you're wrong about something – you should change your mind and be honest with people about that fact,' he said.

Those weren't the only things the populist 'Hillbilly Elegy' author said about Trump. And it was more than a critique of his budget plans.

Vance called Trump a 'moral disaster' in 2017, according to Twitter direct messages unearthed by CNN. He said Trump had 'no domestic policy agenda besides tax cuts.'

Host Bret Baier reeled off some of Vance's greatest hits on Trump. 'I'm a never-Trump guy'; 'never liked him'; 'terrible candidate'; 'idiot if you voted for him'; 'might be America's Hitler'; 'might be a cynical a-hole'; 'cultural heroin'; 'noxious and reprehensible,' the host said, forcing his guest to respond

'When you're wrong about something – you should change your mind and be honest with people about that fact,' Vance said

He also agreed with a host who called Trump a 'total fraud,' saying: 'I don't think he actually cares about folks. I think he just recognizes that there was a hole in the conversation and that hole is that people from these regions of the country, they feel ignored.' 

'I'm a Never Trump guy. I never liked him,' he told interviewer Charlie Rose in 2016.

He also 'liked' tweets saying Trump committed 'serial sexual assault' and one calling him ''one of USA's most hated, villainous, douchey celebs,' CNN reported. 

His Yale Law School classmate shared a screenshot in 2022 of Vance ruminating, 'I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a**hole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler. How's that for discouraging?'