| 9:46 AM (4 hours ago) | |||
| ||||
The Insufferable Liar, JD VanceSunday's talk show circuit revealed the Vice President is willing to lie shamelessly, but he's just not very good at it
When we think ahead to a time without Donald Trump—and that time will come—a natural question arises: "Who is his heir apparent?" Will MAGA survive the eventual passing of Dear Leader by affixing itself to a new rising demagogue? The most obvious pick would be Vice President JD Vance, beloved by the broligarchy and ever eager to display his Trumpian bona fides. That effort was on full display over the weekend as his boss golfed and Vance went on the talk shows to sell whatever vision the GOP currently has for America. But he didn't fare so well. It turns out, Vance is a liar, just not a very capable one. Sure, he manages to speak untruths, and this weekend they poured out of him like shadows from a cursed box. But his delivery fell far short of gifted, calling into serious question whether he can actually gather up all the Cheeto crumbs to make a full meal of it. Ron Filipkowski put it well in his roundup of the weekend's politics for MeidasTouch:
Let's walk through some of these preposterous examples of lying and assess how this pretender to the MAGA throne repeatedly demonstrated how truly full of it he is. The layoffs are… the Democrats' fault? We've had government shutdowns before. Most federal workers get furloughed for the duration of the government's closure, except for essential workers who still have to show up, even though most will not receive paychecks until the shutdown ends. This year, Trump and the Office of Management and Budget, to the horror of many of their own party officials, announced plans to use the shutdown to lay off many federal workers permanently. There are myriad reasons why this is illegal, and the federal labor unions have already filed suit. But beyond that, the optics are terrible. The solution was to send in JD Vance to somehow sell this bag of garbage to the public. NBC's Kristen Welker, who isn't known for her hard-hitting questions, had no problem cornering the Vice President over this. She pointed out that no federal workers were laid off in the prior shutdown in 2019, which lasted 35 days. "Why are these firings necessary?" Welker asked. Vance responded that this was a question of priorities (which is true) but then posed the following question in response: "Who do we care about more, federal bureaucrats in D.C. or low income women getting the food benefits they deserve, our troops getting the payment they need, flood insurance across the Southeast in the midst of hurricane season…" Welker interrupted. "Laying people off is a priority?" she asked, steering him back to her question. "Kristen, if you would let me finish," he said, not understanding how his non-answer was playing to the viewing public. "We have to lay off some federal workers in the midst of this shutdown to preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide." He continued, "We don't want to be in this situation. We don't want to be laying off federal workers. But the Democrats have shut down the government. They have forced us to choose between American citizens and federal bureaucrats." WELKER: During the 2019 shutdown when Trump was president, no federal workers were laid off. Why are these firings necessary? VANCE: Who do we care more about- federal bureaucrats or the troops getting the payment they need? WELKER: But layoffs are a priority? VANCE: They have forced us to choose  Sun, 12 Oct 2025 14:15:24 GMT View on BlueskyVance asserts that the federal budget is a zero sum game, and that the only two choices are either laying off federal "bureaucrats" or cutting off critical social services and foregoing pay for our troops. Vance would have us believe he actually cares about the plight of low income women getting their food benefits, even though the budget he and his party passed devastates those very benefits. Americans by large margins disapprove of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" precisely because it cuts over a trillion dollars from Medicaid and food stamps for the most vulnerable, all so the GOP can extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the super wealthy. Vance says the only solution now is to eliminate even more federal spending and jobs. Nothing is "making" Donald Trump and Russ Vought cut jobs. This is their way of creating maximum pain for Democrats, and they aren't shy about say that. Trump has been publicly gleeful about hurting "Democrat Agencies" and even tied the plans directly to Vought and Project 2025, claiming in early October on Truth Social,
"We're looking at all options" Welker also asked Vance whether President Trump was considering invoking the Insurrection Act. By way of background, Trump so far has used his authority under Title 10 to federalize and attempt to deploy National Guard troops to blue cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Portland. He has been met with resistance from governors Newsom, Pritzker and Kotek, who filed suit against him and won injunctions against the deployment. That has led Trump to up the ante by musing publicly about invoking the Insurrection Act, a law from the early 1800s that permits the president to deploy the military to put down a declared rebellion or insurrection. Here was their exchange:
There's a lot here, but let's start with his lies and distortions around violence against ICE officers. DHS has made several public assertions that protestors have assaulted its agents, but in court it has repeatedly dropped the charges and declined to pursue cases for lack of evidence—or because grand juries found no probable cause to indict. This occurred in several recent examples:
As ABC News noted,
Moreover, Vance's claim that assaults have risen "1,000 percent" is based on a 700 percent figure being tossed around earlier by the regime. But the "1,000 percent" number hides the fact that the actual numbers are very small. DHS disclosed to Fox reporter Bill Melugin that there were 10 alleged assaults on ICE officers in the first half of 2024 versus 69 in the first half of 2025. That's a 690 percent increase, but it's only 59 alleged assaults. And as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council points out, it is unclear what the definition of an "assault" is. Is it simply people resisting being kidnapped and detained? Melnick notes that "despite DHS's massive new enforcement presence in communities around the country, agents still face far fewer threats than beat cops." Vance, like Trump, doesn't like what the actual facts about crime in places like Chicago and Portland are. So, following Trump's lead, he attacks the credibility of the crime statistics themselves. Let's start with the fact that murders in Chicago are near historic lows.
Vance has no answer for why the trend is so much lower other than to say the numbers aren't real. Vance's assertion that the local authorities are too overwhelmed to keep statistics is ludicrous. The Council on Criminal Justice, an independent and non-partisan group, publishes an annual crime report for major U.S. cities. It found,
The FBI also keeps crime statistics, so it's not just a question of local recording of data. It found that the rate of violent crime in Chicago has been falling. As the BBC reported,
Note also how Vance dodged Welker's question about whether there is actually a "rebellion" underway in Chicago or Portland. He pivoted instead to false statements about crime levels before talking about the shooter who killed immigrant detainees. That incident took place at a facility in the Dallas, Texas region, but Trump and Vance haven't demanded the National Guard to be deployed there. Rather, Gov. Abbott is working to send his state's troops to Chicago where they aren't even welcome. Moreover, Vance made an unsupported statement about the political leanings of the alleged killer in Texas. No motive has yet been determined in that attack. In short, Vance, presumably on behalf of the White House, is attempting to justify invocation of the Insurrection Act in Chicago and Portland based on a killing in Texas by a person who has no known affiliation with any leftist groups. Arresting political opponents When George Stephanopoulos interviewed Vance on ABC's This Week, he raised a very serious question concerning Trump's threats to arrest Gov. JB Pritzker, whom Trump labeled a "criminal." In his response, Vance implied that "failing to do his job" as governor is an actionable criminal offense:
If "violating his fundamental oath of office" was really a crime, most of the Republican Party would be charged by now. Vance was awkwardly trying and badly failing to sane-wash the words of Donald Trump, who has recently demonstrated he will use the Department of Justice to come after his political opponents. Vance was trapped because he couldn't disagree with the President's position or he'd be in trouble with his boss and with MAGA. But he couldn't come up with any actual reason for his claim that Pritzker is a criminal, so he fell back on failing to stop crime, even though that isn't a crime by any stretch and even though, as discussed above, crime is way down in Chicago. You can watch Vance dissemble here:
The Homan squirm The only subject in our politics that makes GOP mouthpieces nearly as uncomfortable as the Epstein files is the plight of Trump's border czar, Tom Homan. You probably know by now that Homan was caught in 2024 accepting a paper bag containing $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents, allegedly in connection with promises to direct future contracts their way should he be appointed to a position within the Trump administration. Stephanopoulos asked Vance about that incident, and once again Vance proved incapable of providing a straightforward and honest answer:
Vance then said Stephanopolous's line of questioning was the reason "why fewer and fewer people watch your program, and why you're losing credibility" before returning to his talking points about how "low income women can't get food because the Democrats and Chuck Schumer have shut down the government." STEPHANOPOULOS: Did Tom Homan give the $50,000 back? VANCE: He did not take a bribe. It's a ridiculous smear STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't answer the question VANCE: Did he accept $50,000? I'm sure that in the course of Homan's life, he's been paid more than $50k for services. (So, no, he didn't)  Sun, 12 Oct 2025 15:33:07 GMT View on BlueskyVance is hiding behind the fact that Homan didn't accept a "bribe" because, he appears to argue, only an actual government official can be "bribed," and Homan was only making promises about directing future contracts toward the undercover agents. That's also illegal by the way. It's just technically not a "bribe" in Vance's book. The agents had decided to wait and see if Homan would follow through on those promises, but the investigation was dropped after Homan took office and Kash Patel took over the FBI, surprise surprise. The exchange continued a bit more, with Vance accusing Stephanopoulos of insinuating criminal wrongdoing by Homan and of "going down some weird left-wing rabbit hole" over Homan and the $50,000. At that point, Stephanopoulos said he was making no such insinuiation, restated the facts, noted that Vance did not answer the question, then cut him off and went to a commercial break. STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time. VANCE: No, George, I sai-- STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back  Sun, 12 Oct 2025 15:33:17 GMT View on BlueskyThink about what Vance said for a moment. He would have us believe that Homan accepted a paper bag full of $50,000 for some reason other than a future bribe. Look at his response again: "Did he accept $50,000? I'm sure that in the course of Tom Homan's life, he has been paid more than $50,000 for services." What services were those exactly? Did he perform them? Did he declare the cash on his taxes? Vance couldn't answer the question about whether Homan took the money because answering would expose him to this next logical line of questioning. But to suggest that Homan was aboveboard and just doing what normal people do by meeting government contractors in a parking lot and taking a paper bag full of cash from them is absurd. It reveals Vance for what he is: an apologist for criminals, and a rather bad one at that. Vance's sneering, insufferable way of telling obvious lies, and then acting offended when we don't buy them, isn't going to fly, just as it didn't during the Vice Presidential debates.
Yes, Vance has the ability to lie. He just doesn't have the range. |
| 9:46 AM (4 hours ago) | |||
| ||||
Thanks for being a loyal reader. If you find what I've offered with my daily column to be of value, consider reciprocating that with a paid subscription. It helps me devote myself full time to this project as well as pay for childcare expenses! The Insufferable Liar, JD VanceSunday's talk show circuit revealed the Vice President is willing to lie shamelessly, but he's just not very good at it
When we think ahead to a time without Donald Trump—and that time will come—a natural question arises: "Who is his heir apparent?" Will MAGA survive the eventual passing of Dear Leader by affixing itself to a new rising demagogue? The most obvious pick would be Vice President JD Vance, beloved by the broligarchy and ever eager to display his Trumpian bona fides. That effort was on full display over the weekend as his boss golfed and Vance went on the talk shows to sell whatever vision the GOP currently has for America. But he didn't fare so well. It turns out, Vance is a liar, just not a very capable one. Sure, he manages to speak untruths, and this weekend they poured out of him like shadows from a cursed box. But his delivery fell far short of gifted, calling into serious question whether he can actually gather up all the Cheeto crumbs to make a full meal of it. Ron Filipkowski put it well in his roundup of the weekend's politics for MeidasTouch:
Let's walk through some of these preposterous examples of lying and assess how this pretender to the MAGA throne repeatedly demonstrated how truly full of it he is. The layoffs are… the Democrats' fault? We've had government shutdowns before. Most federal workers get furloughed for the duration of the government's closure, except for essential workers who still have to show up, even though most will not receive paychecks until the shutdown ends. This year, Trump and the Office of Management and Budget, to the horror of many of their own party officials, announced plans to use the shutdown to lay off many federal workers permanently. There are myriad reasons why this is illegal, and the federal labor unions have already filed suit. But beyond that, the optics are terrible. The solution was to send in JD Vance to somehow sell this bag of garbage to the public. NBC's Kristen Welker, who isn't known for her hard-hitting questions, had no problem cornering the Vice President over this. She pointed out that no federal workers were laid off in the prior shutdown in 2019, which lasted 35 days. "Why are these firings necessary?" Welker asked. Vance responded that this was a question of priorities (which is true) but then posed the following question in response: "Who do we care about more, federal bureaucrats in D.C. or low income women getting the food benefits they deserve, our troops getting the payment they need, flood insurance across the Southeast in the midst of hurricane season…" Welker interrupted. "Laying people off is a priority?" she asked, steering him back to her question. "Kristen, if you would let me finish," he said, not understanding how his non-answer was playing to the viewing public. "We have to lay off some federal workers in the midst of this shutdown to preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide." He continued, "We don't want to be in this situation. We don't want to be laying off federal workers. But the Democrats have shut down the government. They have forced us to choose between American citizens and federal bureaucrats." WELKER: During the 2019 shutdown when Trump was president, no federal workers were laid off. Why are these firings necessary? VANCE: Who do we care more about- federal bureaucrats or the troops getting the payment they need? WELKER: But layoffs are a priority? VANCE: They have forced us to choose Sun, 12 Oct 2025 14:15:24 GMT View on BlueskyVance asserts that the federal budget is a zero sum game, and that the only two choices are either laying off federal "bureaucrats" or cutting off critical social services and foregoing pay for our troops. Vance would have us believe he actually cares about the plight of low income women getting their food benefits, even though the budget he and his party passed devastates those very benefits. Americans by large margins disapprove of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" precisely because it cuts over a trillion dollars from Medicaid and food stamps for the most vulnerable, all so the GOP can extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the super wealthy. Vance says the only solution now is to eliminate even more federal spending and jobs. Nothing is "making" Donald Trump and Russ Vought cut jobs. This is their way of creating maximum pain for Democrats, and they aren't shy about say that. Trump has been publicly gleeful about hurting "Democrat Agencies" and even tied the plans directly to Vought and Project 2025, claiming in early October on Truth Social,
"We're looking at all options" Welker also asked Vance whether President Trump was considering invoking the Insurrection Act. By way of background, Trump so far has used his authority under Title 10 to federalize and attempt to deploy National Guard troops to blue cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Portland. He has been met with resistance from governors Newsom, Pritzker and Kotek, who filed suit against him and won injunctions against the deployment. That has led Trump to up the ante by musing publicly about invoking the Insurrection Act, a law from the early 1800s that permits the president to deploy the military to put down a declared rebellion or insurrection. Here was their exchange:
There's a lot here, but let's start with his lies and distortions around violence against ICE officers. DHS has made several public assertions that protestors have assaulted its agents, but in court it has repeatedly dropped the charges and declined to pursue cases for lack of evidence—or because grand juries found no probable cause to indict. This occurred in several recent examples:
As ABC News noted,
Moreover, Vance's claim that assaults have risen "1,000 percent" is based on a 700 percent figure being tossed around earlier by the regime. But the "1,000 percent" number hides the fact that the actual numbers are very small. DHS disclosed to Fox reporter Bill Melugin that there were 10 alleged assaults on ICE officers in the first half of 2024 versus 69 in the first half of 2025. That's a 690 percent increase, but it's only 59 alleged assaults. And as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council points out, it is unclear what the definition of an "assault" is. Is it simply people resisting being kidnapped and detained? Melnick notes that "despite DHS's massive new enforcement presence in communities around the country, agents still face far fewer threats than beat cops." Vance, like Trump, doesn't like what the actual facts about crime in places like Chicago and Portland are. So, following Trump's lead, he attacks the credibility of the crime statistics themselves. Let's start with the fact that murders in Chicago are near historic lows.
Vance has no answer for why the trend is so much lower other than to say the numbers aren't real. Vance's assertion that the local authorities are too overwhelmed to keep statistics is ludicrous. The Council on Criminal Justice, an independent and non-partisan group, publishes an annual crime report for major U.S. cities. It found,
The FBI also keeps crime statistics, so it's not just a question of local recording of data. It found that the rate of violent crime in Chicago has been falling. As the BBC reported,
Note also how Vance dodged Welker's question about whether there is actually a "rebellion" underway in Chicago or Portland. He pivoted instead to false statements about crime levels before talking about the shooter who killed immigrant detainees. That incident took place at a facility in the Dallas, Texas region, but Trump and Vance haven't demanded the National Guard to be deployed there. Rather, Gov. Abbott is working to send his state's troops to Chicago where they aren't even welcome. Moreover, Vance made an unsupported statement about the political leanings of the alleged killer in Texas. No motive has yet been determined in that attack. In short, Vance, presumably on behalf of the White House, is attempting to justify invocation of the Insurrection Act in Chicago and Portland based on a killing in Texas by a person who has no known affiliation with any leftist groups. Arresting political opponents When George Stephanopoulos interviewed Vance on ABC's This Week, he raised a very serious question concerning Trump's threats to arrest Gov. JB Pritzker, whom Trump labeled a "criminal." In his response, Vance implied that "failing to do his job" as governor is an actionable criminal offense:
If "violating his fundamental oath of office" was really a crime, most of the Republican Party would be charged by now. Vance was awkwardly trying and badly failing to sane-wash the words of Donald Trump, who has recently demonstrated he will use the Department of Justice to come after his political opponents. Vance was trapped because he couldn't disagree with the President's position or he'd be in trouble with his boss and with MAGA. But he couldn't come up with any actual reason for his claim that Pritzker is a criminal, so he fell back on failing to stop crime, even though that isn't a crime by any stretch and even though, as discussed above, crime is way down in Chicago. You can watch Vance dissemble here:
The Homan squirm The only subject in our politics that makes GOP mouthpieces nearly as uncomfortable as the Epstein files is the plight of Trump's border czar, Tom Homan. You probably know by now that Homan was caught in 2024 accepting a paper bag containing $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents, allegedly in connection with promises to direct future contracts their way should he be appointed to a position within the Trump administration. Stephanopoulos asked Vance about that incident, and once again Vance proved incapable of providing a straightforward and honest answer:
Vance then said Stephanopolous's line of questioning was the reason "why fewer and fewer people watch your program, and why you're losing credibility" before returning to his talking points about how "low income women can't get food because the Democrats and Chuck Schumer have shut down the government." STEPHANOPOULOS: Did Tom Homan give the $50,000 back? VANCE: He did not take a bribe. It's a ridiculous smear STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't answer the question VANCE: Did he accept $50,000? I'm sure that in the course of Homan's life, he's been paid more than $50k for services. (So, no, he didn't) Sun, 12 Oct 2025 15:33:07 GMT View on BlueskyVance is hiding behind the fact that Homan didn't accept a "bribe" because, he appears to argue, only an actual government official can be "bribed," and Homan was only making promises about directing future contracts toward the undercover agents. That's also illegal by the way. It's just technically not a "bribe" in Vance's book. The agents had decided to wait and see if Homan would follow through on those promises, but the investigation was dropped after Homan took office and Kash Patel took over the FBI, surprise surprise. The exchange continued a bit more, with Vance accusing Stephanopoulos of insinuating criminal wrongdoing by Homan and of "going down some weird left-wing rabbit hole" over Homan and the $50,000. At that point, Stephanopoulos said he was making no such insinuiation, restated the facts, noted that Vance did not answer the question, then cut him off and went to a commercial break. STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time. VANCE: No, George, I sai-- STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back Sun, 12 Oct 2025 15:33:17 GMT View on BlueskyThink about what Vance said for a moment. He would have us believe that Homan accepted a paper bag full of $50,000 for some reason other than a future bribe. Look at his response again: "Did he accept $50,000? I'm sure that in the course of Tom Homan's life, he has been paid more than $50,000 for services." What services were those exactly? Did he perform them? Did he declare the cash on his taxes? Vance couldn't answer the question about whether Homan took the money because answering would expose him to this next logical line of questioning. But to suggest that Homan was aboveboard and just doing what normal people do by meeting government contractors in a parking lot and taking a paper bag full of cash from them is absurd. It reveals Vance for what he is: an apologist for criminals, and a rather bad one at that. Vance's sneering, insufferable way of telling obvious lies, and then acting offended when we don't buy them, isn't going to fly, just as it didn't during the Vice Presidential debates.
Yes, Vance has the ability to lie. He just doesn't have the range. |
No comments:
Post a Comment