While overall job creation in 2025 saw a “sharp slowdown” when compared to the previous year, President Donald Trump did spark a boom in one industry: the pardon lobbying business, which law professor Kim Wehl wrote was “booming” thanks to the president having "converted a constitutional safeguard of mercy into a tawdry instrument of corruption and grift.”
The authority to issue pardons is granted to the president by Article II of the Constitution, and has been used controversially by past presidents; former President Bill Clinton pardoned major Democratic Party donor Marc Rich on his last day in office, and former President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, and after pledging not to.
However, Trump’s use of his pardon authority was a “far cry” from past uses, Wehl argued in an analysis published Sunday in Zeteo, and made possible by a conservative-controlled Supreme Court that has expanded the power of the executive since Trump took office in January.
“Thanks to an enabling Supreme Court majority and a supplicant Congress, the language of Article II has been recast as a transactional favor – priced in loyalty, extreme wealth, and proximity to power, not merit – like a cynical prop in a grotesque spectacle of impunity,” Wehl wrote.
“So far, the damage is mostly legal. Not for long. When clemency is wielded as a commodity for personal self-enrichment and power, it sends a clear message: compliance with the rule of law and reciprocal justice are optional. Trump is the ‘law’ now. It’s disgusting.”
There is no revival in sight for the MAGA faithful who are struggling with "lame-duck" president Donald Trump and infighting in the Republican Party, Slate writer Luke Winkie pronounced Monday.
Winkie suggested the "new era of MAGA dominance" was already off to a bad start as figureheads failed to adapt to the death of Charlie Kirk. The right-wing political commentator was assassinated on September 10, and it has not brought MAGA the boom in support it was expecting.
Winkie wrote, "The consequences are such that the assassination of Charlie Kirk has shed the readily available narrative coherence that Trump-aligned agitators once hoped to leverage. There is no revival coming, nor an institutionalization of MAGA thought."
Further on from the power vacuum left by Kirk's death, the MAGA faithful who have filled the space he once populated are now fighting with one another. Influencers Candace Owens and Tim Pool were seen arguing on X, with Owens' comments on Kirk's death deemed "ghoulish, fantastical, or otherwise insane" by Winkie.
Pool has taken issue with Owens because, as Winkie writes, she is "shamelessly profiting off of Kirk's death by cultivating an eldritch sense of suspicion." He continued, "But, again, that is only possible because deregulated conservative digital media has long feasted on talking points that skew false, ghoulish, fantastical, or otherwise insane."
There was trouble already within wider parts of the Republican Party and Trump's administration, which Winkie went on to highlight. He wrote, "Instead, Kirk leaves behind a battlefield for a scattered and increasingly aberrant Republican Party, unbound by the gravity of a lame-duck Trump."
Owens shows no signs of stopping her constant comments on Kirk conspiracy theories. In one statement, she said the "gaslighting" over Kirk's death must stop, and that there is "nothing that's been convincing" when it comes to confirming the political activist was assassinated by Tyler Robinson.
Winkie added, "Owens will continue to spread strange rumors about Kirk’s killing, reaping massive engagement along the way."
"For what it’s worth, the vast spectrum of right-wing media has made a concerted effort to discredit Owens and stymie the spread of these conspiracies."
Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Todd Blanche did the president no favors with his appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday when he stumbled while trying to describe the women who were seen in a picture with Trumpthat was in Jeffrey Epstein’s possession, analysts said.
The now-controversial photo was in the big Epstein drop from the Department of Justice on Friday, was yanked from public view hours later, only to reappear again on Sunday after the removal started a firestorm.
Blanche, in his capacity as deputy attorney general, attempted to explain the DOJ’s actions, but only threw more fuel on the fire, claimed “Morning Joe” co—hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
Scarborough first noted that Blanche called what the DOJ is doing with regard to releasing the files of the notorious sex trafficker an act of “transparency.”
“I wrote it down here because this is going to come back,” the MS NOW host said. “And this is a real laugher: ‘This is the most transparent process in U.S. history,’ he says, when it's of course, it's the least transparent.”
“And then, I’m really very concerned for Todd Blanche, because Todd Blanche seemed to suggest that Donald Trump was in a picture of victims, of Epstein victims, when he said, we only took down Donald Trump's picture because we didn't want to expose the faces of victims.”
“Oh my gosh,” Brzezinski blurted.
“Let’s chew on that again," Scarborough continued. “He said they had — why is everybody making such a big deal? We were trying to protect victims of Jeffrey Epstein when we took Donald Trump's picture off the files.”
“I don't know, if I were Donald Trump, I'd be very angry that Todd Blanche accused him of being with Epstein victims when there's no evidence of that whatsoever,” he suggested.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles revealed an "itch" that makes her no different from the rest of the self-promoters and cranks in President Donald Trump's orbit, a columnist observed.
The president's top staffer gave a series of shockingly revealing interviews to Vanity Fair's Chris Whipple, and New York Times writer Frank Bruni was fascinated by her motivations for dishing out gossip about Trump's "alcoholic’s personality" and dismissing Vice President JD Vance as “a conspiracy theorist.”
"Why did she do it? Why discard her usual discretion and speak so frankly, on the record, about her cracked compatriots in the Trump administration?" Bruni wrote. "It’s a great question, but it’s not the most important one, which is this: Why does she do it? I’m referring not to the interview but to her job. If she can see the incoherence, immoderation and instability all around her, why abet it?"
The answer to both questions is the same, in Bruni's estimation.
"The first year of Trump’s return to the White House has shown or reminded us of many things, including the fragility of democracy, the prevalence of cowardice and the intensity of tribalism," he wrote. "But it has been an especially stark and galling education in the intoxication of power."
"And Wiles is a more illuminating entry on that syllabus than other senior administration officials, who wear their vainglory so conspicuously it might as well be a sandwich board spelling out their attachment to their entourages, to their letterheads, to the pomp and the perks," Bruni added.
Unlike wildly unqualified administration officials like Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – whom she affectionately calls "my Bobby" – Wiles is a seasoned political pro who has preferred to work behind the scenes. But Bruni said her interviews betrayed that self-cultivated reputation.
"Wiles is certainly no Hegseth, showily doing push-ups with the troops; no Patel, with his premature expectorations; no Kristi Noem, zipping down to El Salvador for a macabre photo op," Bruni wrote. "But she’s also human, with an itch to make sure that her presence and her sway at the pinnacle of power don’t go unnoticed, unrecorded, underappreciated."
"Even someone like Wiles savors the air up there," the columnist added. "Even if it’s toxic with conspiracy theories and zealotry."
“[H]e’s making these claims about inflation that aren’t true, making these claims about wages that aren’t true, making these claims about costs that aren’t true — just a torrent of falsehoods,” said columnist Jamelle Bouie. “All clearly coming from a place of deep frustration that he isn’t as popular and well beloved as he believes he should be, which, on the one hand, is a sign that something of reality is penetrating this White House. On the other hand, it’s clear that they have no sense of how to respond to that.”
“The title of this, as best I could tell, was ‘Screw You All, You Whiners: The Economy’s Great, and if It’s Not, Blame Biden.’ said columnist Michelle Cottle. “That was it, again and again — oh, and ‘hate the immigrants.’ So I am just not sure what they’re hoping to accomplish with that, other than maybe to increase the calls for him to get another cognitive assessment. But I thought it was pretty magical.”
“Well, I think that the aim is just to give him something to do,” said Bouie. “You put him out there to give this 20-minute harangue, and then you tell him it was great and everyone loved it and this’ll turn things around, and then he just goes back to going to his clubs and hanging out in the Oval Office. But it’s not clear to me that this is meant to serve a particular objective. It’s not going to reverse any fortunes for the president.”
“Are you just suggesting they’re trying to keep Grandpa busy?” asked Cottle:
“I think they’re trying to keep Grandpa busy, and this is one way to do it,” Bouie replied.
Columnist David French called the speech “Banana Republic-flavored Soviet propaganda” but with less effectiveness.
“If you go back and you remember Soviet propaganda in the ’70s and the ’80s … Everything is always going so well, they’re going onto greater and higher achievements. And you always had this presentation of relentless forward momentum,” said French. “And then the reason I say ‘Banana Republic-flavored’ is because it was filtered through this demagogic figure who essentially … believes that he can basically talk his way out of anything: ‘Get me in front of the American people, I’ll fix this affordability thing. Get me in front of the American people, I’ll fix this political decline.’”
Read and hear the New York Times podcast at this link.
Ted Cruz could face off against a section of the Republican Party that "hate" him — and another huge obstacle — should he bid for the presidency, according to a report.
Cruz had tried and failed to pitch himself in 2016, losing to Donald Trump in the primaries. But a comeback could be on for the long-serving GOP Texas senator. Insiders believe Cruz must face off against a contingent of the party who simply "hate" him, and the apparent shoo-in nomination for vice president, JD Vance.
The Washington Post suggested that, if Cruz does intend on running, he may face more pushback from the Republican Party than most others would when announcing a presidential bid.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who confirmed her retirement earlier this year, suggested the MAGA contingent of the party is fully on the side of JD Vance. She said, "The Republicans will be fighting for their identity. There’ll be Ted Cruz, I’m sure, running against JD Vance. All of us hate Ted Cruz."
Skepticism remains over whether a Cruz bid for the 2028 nomination would go very far. The Washington Post reporters Liz Goodwin and Emily Davies wrote, "The emerging rivalry shows how much the party has changed under Trump’s leadership since Cruz arrived in the Senate in 2013."
"After rising to prominence as a rebel against the establishment, Cruz is now a vocal champion of some longtime orthodox GOP positions, as a new generation of conservatives is ascending with a different vision."
"Some political observers are skeptical that another Cruz run would gain much traction. He can no longer run as an outsider and alienated some conservatives with his fight against Trump in the 2016 campaign."
"Still, Cruz has built name recognition and relationships with plenty of activists and donors across the country in recent years, and it’s far from clear what will animate the base in the next GOP primary."
Cruz has refused to make himself a clear ally of Donald Trump during the president's second term, with many believing this distance means the senator is putting the groundwork in for a run at the presidency. A source close to Trump has called Cruz's interest in the NASA administrator role a "desperate attempt" at relaunching his political career.
They told NOTUS, "The roadblocks that Ted is putting up in front of the president’s nominee for NASA administrator — someone who’s gone through the hearing and is qualified — only serve as a desperate attempt to relaunch a political career as a protest candidate. Ted has been terribly unserious as of late."
As the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) looks to shed as many as 35,000 mostly vacant health-care jobs this month — having already cut nearly 30,000 since President Donald Trump returned to office — a disabled Vietnam veteran has gone public, railing against the administration.
Ronn Easton, 76, is the face of a new video calling out the Trump administration for its attacks on veterans and produced by Home of the Brave, a nonprofit focused on portraying what it calls “catastrophic harm” under Trump.
“This is not what I intended my retirement years to be like,” Easton told Raw Story.
“I've only taken one oath in my life, and there is no expiration date on that oath, and that oath says that I am to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and right now, as I have said many, many times, Donald John Trump is the biggest threat to democracy that this country will ever see.
“I'm duty-bound to do whatever I can to fight against it, and I will do that until the day I die.”
‘Veterans' lives at risk’
Last week, Trump announced a $1,776 “veterans dividend” — its value symbolizing the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War against Great Britain.
Analysts pointed out that Trump misrepresented the source of the cash, implying it was raised by tariffs when in fact it was money already approved by Congress for a one-time housing allowance.
In his new video, Easton said Trump’s latest VA moves are “killing soldiers,” particularly as veterans need access to VA health care and suicide hotline resources.
Easton served as an armorer in the Vietnam War, enlisting after two childhood friends were killed in action. He said he has used the Veterans Crisis Line himself.
Following his service, Easton became 100 percent disabled, diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), tinnitus, neuropathy and Type 2 diabetes due to exposure to Agent Orange, the cancer- and neurological disease-causing herbicide used in Vietnam to clear enemy hiding spots.
“There have been times where I have had a gun in my mouth, but I made a promise to my daughter, to my bride, that I would never do something like that,” Easton said.
“That's not an option for me anymore, so that's why I do what I do now. I fight.”
With the Trump administration cutting billions of dollars in medical research funding, including cancer research, veterans end up suffering as many have cancer due to exposure to chemical agents like Agent Orange, Easton said.
“All they're doing is putting veterans’ lives at risk again,” Easton said.
Easton puts a lot of the responsibility on Elon Musk, who led the now-sunset Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which took a sledgehammer approach to cutting government funding and employees in the first months of Trump’s second term.
“People like that, who come in and make little of veterans, and they do all of these cuts to the VA, where they fired thousands of people, and all that does is affect the health care [for] people who have served this country,” Easton said.
‘Pattern of callousness’
Easton first got fired up about speaking out against Trump when he watched the then-2016 presidential candidate imply that veterans with PTSD weren’t strong enough, during an address at the United States Military Academy, at West Point.
Trump, 79, has long attracted skepticism and anger among veterans, given his own record of avoiding service during the Vietnam War.
Trump received five draft deferments — four educational and one medical, over a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that has been widely questioned.
He famously said avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in Manhattan nightclubs in the 1970s was his “personal Vietnam.”
On entering politics, Trump also courted controversy with attacks on John McCain, the late Republican presidential candidate and Arizona senator who suffered torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Easton said Trump had continued a pattern of “callousness and the lack of caring” toward veterans over the years, including recent controversy over photo opportunities at Arlington National Cemetery.
Easton, a former epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health, started a new podcast this fall focused on current events, where he frequently hosts veterans.
Called Cover Your Six — a military term for “I’ve got your back” — the podcast is the latest of Easton’s efforts to speak out against racism and injustices, which he said he learned from his grandmother, a civil rights activist with the NAACP who hosted figures including late icons John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr. in her Memphis living room.
Donald Trump has failed to face up to the reality of the cost of living crisis according to a political commentator who highlighted this "indifference".
John Casey suggested the president had failed to mark up the everyday problems facing the country this Christmas in an opinion piece for The Daily Beast. Casey claimed that Trump had flat out lied about prices falling when, in fact, they were on the rise. Trump's administration was compared to that of Herbert Hoover's "moral failure" in failing to adapt to The Great Depression.
Casey wrote, "Herbert Hoover embodied the moral failure of inaction. When the Great Depression devastated the nation, he refused to treat widespread suffering as a call for federal intervention."
"The catastrophic results included soaring unemployment, hunger, disease, and death. Americans experienced what it means when their government refused responsibility for pain."
"Trump’s governing style reflects this refusal to face reality, with consequences stemming from deadlines passed and protections lapsed, with the indifferent refrain that 'things won’t be that bad.'"
"He dismisses warnings from job reports to inflation data as mere messaging problems and the reliable fallback of fake news. Economic hardship is challenged as a Democratic hoax, even as ordinary Americans struggle. Gas prices are down even when they are up."
These economic woes are starting to put strain on the MAGA faithful, according to Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. Writing in his Substack newsletter, Krugman explained how Trump had inherited an economy that was in much better shape before he took office.
The Nobel Prize winner wrote, "Trump inherited when he took office was in much better shape than today’s economy, with lower unemployment combined with faster job growth, and inflation trending down."
"Trump’s radical policy changes – huge (illegal) tariffs, mass deportations, big tax cuts (for the rich), benefit cuts (for the poor and middle class), mass layoffs of federal workers, disinvesting in huge green energy projects and aid to farmers — have been clearly damaging to everything besides crypto and AI.
"It strains credulity – even for the Trump faithful – to claim that we are still in Joe Biden’s economy." Krugman went on to suggest Trump will try and "gaslight" Americans into believing the economy has been fixed.
He wrote, "Trump is going to make a prime-time address to the nation tonight. The details of his speech haven’t been announced, but it’s a good guess that he intends to gaslight Americans yet again, claiming that things are going well. They aren’t."
A former GOP insider believes JD Vance has little to no chance of becoming the Republican Party pick to succeed Donald Trump as president.
The Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson, during an appearance on Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast, suggested Vance will be taken out by other, more capable candidates. Host Jong-Fast agreed and suggested Vance did not have the competency required to be seen as a shoo-in for the presidency.
Wilson noted the endorsement for the vice president from Erika Kirk had come far too soon, with Trump still sitting as president for the next three years. In that time, Vance may be side-lined or dropped from the front runner spot to take over as the Republican Party's pick.
Wilson said, "It never gets better for JD Vance than it does at this moment. JD Vance will be knifed to little, itty bitty pieces at some point by these other people."
Jong-Fast added, "You have this power, you should have everyone coming to you, proving that they are the heir apparent. One of the things we saw with Vance when he ran for Senate in Ohio, what we've seen again and again, is he's a terrible candidate. He's not good at this."
"He doesn't have good political instincts. He's not charming. He's done just about as badly as anyone with this job." Wilson would also note Vance's "negative charisma" and how it could be a major stumbling block for the vice president in future.
He said, "There's a degree of JD Vance's negative charisma. He is kind of an odd guy. Vance is strange." Despite doubts from the ex-GOP insider, Vance could step in as acting president in an unlikely but possible scenario.
Biographer Michael Wolff believes Trump's off topic comments last month during a meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani could have set alarm bells off for White House insiders.
Wolff, quoting an unnamed source, said, "'Nobody expected that. This was not the script. It was completely out of the blue... and concerning. This wasn’t just losing the plot. This was like a different guy. The look in his eyes was crazy.'" The biographer has gone on to suggest the 25th Amendment could come into play.
The source told Wolff, "The only explanation was that the guy forgot who he is—so weird. It gives you a 25th Amendment shiver." The 25th Amendment was written to ensure the vice president takes over in the event the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office by impeachment.
Frequent check-ups for Donald Trump could point to "monitoring" a health problem rather than finding it, a psychologist has claimed.
Dr. John Gartner believes the three Montreal Cognitive Assessments is to monitor an existing condition that could indicate just how rapid the president's cognitive decline is. Dr. Garter, speaking to The Daily Beast, says Trump "gave the game away" when boasting about his brilliant health aboard Air Force One.
Speaking in April this year, Trump says he "got every answer right" on the cognitive test. He would repeat this claim in October, saying he had passed a "very hard" test which "a low IQ person" would not manage to pass.
He said at the time, "They have Jasmine Crockett, a low IQ person. AOC is low IQ. You give her an IQ test, have her pass, like, the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed."
"I took– Those are very hard– They're really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way, but they're cognitive tests. Let AOC go against Trump. Let Jasmine go against Trump. I don't think Jasmine– The first couple questions are easy: a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know."
"When you get up to about five or six and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, they couldn't come close to answering any of those questions." Dr. Gartner believes these tests are to monitor an existing dementia condition than track for signs of it starting.
He claimed, "You know, he kind of gave the game away again, as he often does. You could maybe justify giving someone the MoCA once, just on their age, just as part of a physical. If you’re giving it to him three times, that means you’re not assessing dementia. That means you’re monitoring dementia."
"Because if you keep feeling like, no, he’s still got the symptoms, we’ve got to see how bad he’s doing now, we’ve got to check again, see how bad he’s doing now—I think they’re giving him cognitive tests and M.R.I.s every six months to monitor the progress of his dementia, and/or strokes."
Dr. Gartner has since suggested there has been a "change of some kind" in the president that can be linked to his mental decline.
He added, "We have to judge people against their own baseline, and if somebody doubles their rate of speed, that’s a mental status change of some kind."
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) fired back at Vice President JD Vance's insult lobbed from the stage of a high-profile conservativhttps://www.rawstory.com/crockett-budget-bill/e conference.
The vice president slammed the Texas Democrat, who's mounting a U.S. Senate challenge for the seat held by Sen. Joh Cornyn (R-TX), from his wide-ranging and racially charged speech at Turning Point USA’s annual America Fest conference in Phoenix.
“Jasmine Crockett!” Vance exclaimed. “Oh, Jasmine Crockett, the record speaks for itself. She wants to be a senator, though her street-girl persona is about as real as her nails!”
Vance’s remarks were met with thunderous applause at the event aimed at young conservatives, but Crockett provided a substantially less positive reaction on social media.
"Imagine commenting on someone’s nails while at the same time ignoring that the only reason you got your political 'dream' job was because your boss incited a violent mob who wanted to hang your predecessor for, oh I don’t know, honoring his oath to the Constitution?!" Crockett posted on her X account. "How about you stop worrying about me, until we are on the Senate floor together & work to stop your boss from bankrupting our country while engaging in the largest corruption scheme we’ve ever seen?!"
CBS News cut an upcoming "60 Minutes" report at the last minute on the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador, setting off an outcry on social media.
The network's flagship news magazine had been scheduled to broadcast a report Sunday on a group of Venezuelan men thought they were being deported back to their country of origin, but instead, they were delivered to CECOT, until the plans were scrapped about two hours before the program was set to air.
"The broadcast lineup for tonight's edition of 60 minutes has been updated," the program posted on its social media accounts. "Our report 'Inside CECOT' will air in a future broadcast."
The decision sparked criticism and raised questions about its newly installed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss immediately.
"Murrow dies again," sighed popular Bluesky account Grudgie the Whale.
"A news program with a legacy built up over 55 years," lamented Bluesky user Skeet Child O' Mine. "All torched by Bari Weiss in under a year."
"I grew up watching 60 Minutes every Sunday with my dad," stated Bluesky user Lee Marvin Oswald. "I continued that tradition with my own family. No more. You have really failed us. What a sad end to such a storied and long-running institution. And for what? Pathetic."
"Bari Weiss going from purported brave defender of free speech and open debate to chief censor of reporting about a federal concentration camp is so grimly hilarious," opined Bluesky user Stephen Judkins.
"Bari Weiss is really bad at her job," posted journalist Dave Itzkoff, "until you realize it's her job to be really bad at her job, in which case she is excellent at her job."
"WOW. They're not going to air their special on CECOT," noted popular Bluesky user Mueller, She Wrote. "I'd like to know who made this decision, and whether the federal government had a hand in it."
"Perhaps we should film a debate between a concentration camp guard and an abandoned toilet over whether CECOT is good," suggested journalist Matt Pearce, alluding to another highly criticized recent decision by CBS News. "Brought to you by Bank of America."
"What changed between now & Friday’s press release about this now delayed (or actually canceled?) @60minutes.bsky.social segment on the CECOT torture prison? Seems very odd," pondered journalist Jennifer Schulze. "Anyone know if 60 Minutes has ever delayed a piece at the last minute before?"
"Bari’s CBS pulled their CECOT report which included interviews with immigrants who were tortured in this concentration camp," said journalist Krystall Ball. "The Trump regime does not want you to know what was done to these people."
Vice President JD Vance made some startlingly racist remarks Sunday during a speech at a conservative conference in Arizona.
The 41-year-old vice president spoke Turning Point USA conference, where the slain organization founder Charlie Kirk's widow Erika Kirk endorsed him for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, and made a number of controversial statements during his address.
Vance, according to journalist Aaron Rupar, drew the biggest applause of his speech when he claimed "by the grace of God we always will be a Christian nation."
"Wow: Overt, unapologetic Christian nationalism from the Vice President here," marveled Jack Jenkins, national correspondent for Religion News Service. "Even Trump has stopped short of saying something this explicit on the topic while President."
"Again, Vance smuggles in a false premise: That America was EVER a Christian nation," argued Bluesky user Dr. Tea, Cake, & Revolution. "He’s such a weasel."
"In the United States of America," Vance said, "you don't have to apologize for being white anymore."
That comment drew widespread criticism for its blatant racism.
"From dog whistles to bull horns, huh," said Bluesky user Nick Covington.
"Right out loud. I wonder if he recites that to his wife and kids every night at bedtime," agreed Bluesky user Mimi G.
"JD Vance is a self proclaimed f*cking racist," snarled widely followed Bluesky user PhillipUSA.
"I don’t think the mainstream news can possibly report on just how vile & dangerous this JD Vance diatribe is," said journalist Jennifer Schulze. "Some will gloss over the extremism, others will both sides it. So people need to watch the actual video to see/hear for themselves the white nationalist venom spewing from this monster."
"This tells you that Vance thinks the MAGA base isn’t just full of diehard racists; he thinks it’s full of diehard racists who are also too cowardly to be openly racist if they think people might disapprove," posted historian Kevin Kruse.
"Imagine looking in the mirror every day, seeing J.D. Vance looking back at you, and STILL being a white supremacist," sighed author Aram Sinnreich. "It must be cognitively exhausting."
"The vice president is a klansman," opined New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.
"Worried that the base is upset about the child raping, JD Vance lures them back into the fold by reminding them that they are loved for their racism," replied retired math professor Scott Farrand.
"Jefferson Davis Vance," added Bluesky user William Smith.
