Never forget that the Ohioan who is a heartbeat away from the presidency — and chomping at the bit to replace the aging, increasingly incoherent incumbent — said he makes things up to get attention.
JD Vance, the former first-term Ohio senator who wheedled his way into the good graces of a convicted felon (he once called an “idiot”) to become vice-president, flat out declared his willingness “to create stories” last year while defending his false, racist rumors of Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
It was a remarkable confession from a craven opportunist who scarcely hid his power lust.
Today Vance salivates over sitting behind the Resolute Desk and proves time and again that he will do and say whatever it takes to get there.
Ohioans saw his politically expedient metamorphosis from anti-Trumper to bearded MAGA poser in his rocky U.S. Senate campaign. They watched Vance prostrate himself before a disgraced ex-president to snag an endorsement and pull off an improbable win.
His brief stint in the U.S. Senate was largely spent auditioning to be Trump’s presidential running mate with performative, made-for-Fox News theatrics and bookings. Vance won the part and the vice-presidency.
That politicians lie is hardly news. But Vance does it pathologically, like his boss. Except the veep isn’t Trump. The Ohio politician doesn’t get a pass on lying or acting like a jerk. That’s reserved for the twice-impeached adjudicated fraudster and sexual abuser who famously bragged he could get away with anything and not lose any voters.
Vance gets no such reprieve.
When he fumbles and fabricates with obvious untruths, the veep gets worldwide ridicule and even worse favorability ratings.
Yet driven by ambition, Vance persists in repeating disproven claims, believing it will benefit his 2028 prospects rather than harm them.
He may be right.
Vance catapulted to the White House as Trump’s understudy despite the dehumanizing story he invented to terrorize lawful immigrant workers in his home state.
He amplified all sorts of lies in the 2024 campaign, including false claims about a stolen election that wasn’t and Trump saving Obamacare which he tried to kill.
Nevertheless, some in the MAGA camp still look askance at Vance’s transformation from Never-Trumper to Biggest-Trump-Fan-Ever.
Authentic doesn’t describe the Silicon Valley venture capitalist-turned-MAGA grievance peddler.
Little wonder Vance was tanking in the Republican primary race for the Ohio U.S. Senate seat until his billionaire pals came to the rescue with Trump’s blessing.
But the 41-year-old from Middletown, Ohio is a climber on his way to the top.
He is a restless vice president who covets his boss’ job.
Problem is Vance has neither Trump’s charisma nor entertainment chops — let alone his cult of personality. To be fair, it’s doubtful any red-tie wearing sycophant does.
Yet from the moment Vance boarded Air Force Two, he began sharpening his skills set as a front man for the Trump regime who could effortlessly dispense spin on the daily with scant connection to reality.
His list of whoppers have effectively erased any pretense that the prospective president-in-waiting is a straight shooter who can be trusted to tell the truth.
But frankly, Vance forfeited the mantle of credibility when he confessed a penchant for inventing fairy tales as a means to an end. He admitted he was willing to manufacture stories that weren’t true to generate headlines that paid off politically.
Everything Vance says must be weighed in the context of that admission. He essentially copped to lying as a partisan ploy for publicity.
Last week the veep super-charged a lie so big and so brazen about the Republican government shutdown it was almost not worth addressing — save for the people who might be misled by the ploy to juice up media attention.
It was a story created out of whole cloth that falsely tied the shutdown to Democrats’ alleged drive to give all immigrants health care. Pure fabrication. But Vance ran with it.
As the U.S. headed for a shutdown a week ago, the shameless Ohioan repeated what he must have known had no basis in fact:
“Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens.”
Vance and other Republicans continued to parrot the made-up claim even after it was factually refuted as fantasy.
Nowhere in the Democrats’ proposal, which Republicans refused to negotiate, is there any demand to fund health care for people in the U.S. unlawfully — who have never been eligible federally funded Medicaid, Medicare, or Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Democrats want Republicans to extend a temporary Biden-era program that lowered health insurance costs for more than 20 million Americans buying coverage through the ACA.
They also want Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, to undo at least some of the dramatic Medicaid cuts the GOP enacted over the summer in Trump’s godawful bill.
But Vance isn’t focused on the dire financial stakes facing low-to middle-income Ohioans or citizens across the country. He has stories to create and appearances to book.
- Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist.
