'Our country is kind of a joke': GOP candidate justifies his mockery of fatal movie set shooting

Republican candidate J.D. Vance justified his widely criticized joke about a movie set shooting by mocking the United States.

The venture capitalist author of "Hillbilly Elegy" responded to the on-set killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by calling for the reinstatement of Donald Trump to Twitter so the former president could ridicule actor Alec Baldwin, who accidentally fired the fatal shot, and an Ohio reporter asked the Senate candidate why he believed that was appropriate.

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"Look, people may not always agree with my rhetoric," Vance said. "But I think, unfortunately, our country is kind of a joke and we should be able to tell jokes about it, right? I think it's important for our politicians to have a sense of humor. I think it's important for us to be real people."

"Every single person that I know was joking about what Donald Trump would say if he was on Twitter, right?" he added. "So I think the idea that we can't have somewhat offensive humor sometimes from our politicians is basically just asking us to have fake politicians all the time. That's not what I'm going to be. Maybe it turns some people off but I think the realness turns more people on."