The Daily Beast reports:

J.D. Vance’s long friendship with a transgender friend who attended his wedding has been revealed—including how he spoke about hating cops and disparaged Donald Trump and conservative icon Antonin Scalia.

Sofia Nelson, a Yale Law School contemporary of Trump’s running mate, revealed how they corresponded by text and email for years until falling out over his support for a ban on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.

In October 2014, after the police killing that summer of Michael Ferguson, an 18-year-old Black man in Ferguson, Missouri, caused widespread protests and violence, Vance wrote to Nelson: “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”

The New York Times reports:

The emails, in which Mr. Vance criticizes former President Donald J. Trump both for “racism” and as a “morally reprehensible human being,” add to an already-existing body of evidence showing Mr. Vance’s ideological pivot from Never Trumper to Mr. Trump’s running mate.

And they reflect a young man quite different from the hard-right culture warrior of today who back then brought homemade baked goods to his friend after Nelson underwent transition-related surgery. The visit cemented their bond.

Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, said they visited each other’s homes, talked on Zoom during the pandemic and exchanged long emails discussing a range of subjects, from the minutiae of daily life to weighty discussions of current events and public policy issues.

Gift link for the lengthy Times report here.