All posts tagged "jd vance"

'Major error' by Trump has created formidable opponent to MAGA's reign: analyst

President Donald Trump's violent threats aimed at several Democrats, and specifically Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), have now positioned the lawmaker for a potential presidential run in 2028, a commentator said Monday.

In an analysis published by Salon's Jason Kyle Howard on Monday, the writer described why Trump's move could be a "potential risk" for Republicans after the president had a vicious response to a Nov.18 video featuring Kelly, a retired Navy captain and combat pilot, and five other Democrats — all veterans and former intelligence personnel — who gave a direct message to veterans: "You can refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

Trump took to Truth Social and called the Democratic lawmakers "traitors" who should be imprisoned or face the death penalty. Later, he denied that he made those threats.

And then on Nov. 24, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the Pentagon was investigating if Kelly had violated military law, saying the Arizona senator could be called back to active duty and could face “court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.” The next day, an FBI probe was reportedly underway to investigate "the lawmakers’ conduct." The agency apparently wanted to schedule interviews with each of the six lawmakers in the video.

But the series of attacks has backfired on the Trump administration and Kelly has used the maneuvers to his advantage, making television appearances, sending out fundraising emails and speaking out against the president, Howard wrote. He "also seized the opportunity to go on the offense and talk about other issues."

"By virtue of the Pentagon investigation, as well as rumors of his presidential ambitions, Kelly has received the lion’s share of attention," Howard wrote. "That’s bad news for Republicans and constitutes a major error on the part of Trump, whose actions have had unintended consequences: He has elevated Kelly as a potential 2028 rival, if not for himself then for his MAGA successor, whether that ends up being Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Donald Trump Jr. — who’s in second place behind Vance according to a recent poll — or even Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently announced her retirement from Congress."

Trump might not have considered how his attacks on Kelly would pan out and how Americans would react.

"For all his achievements, Kelly is not a natural showman. A sober presence in interviews and on the stump, he has tended to fade into the background in the Senate," Howard explained. "But Kelly also has an unquantifiable quality that more voters, at least over the past couple of decades, have associated with Republican politicians: BDE. This understated confidence is something that Trump, with his hurricane of narcissism and swagger, has never possessed. It’s a trait that has been on full display in every interview Kelly has given since he became the target of the administration’s ire."

'JD Vance suffers' as president's polls plummet – with one MAGA rival close on his heels

New polling shows Vice President JD Vance's chances for becoming the next Republican presidential nominee have taken a big hit.

The vice president enjoyed a 20-point lead over his chief rival to the MAGA throne – Donald Trump Jr. – in an August poll, but that advantage has been cut in half as the president's popularity plummets, reported The Independent.

“The issue for Vance is that he’s so closely tied to this administration,” said Mark Shanahan, an associate professor at the University of Sussex. “For the moment, he has to be in lockstep with the president. If he’s not, he simply isn’t doing the job he has been elected to fulfill. So, while Trump’s polling is languishing, Vance suffers.”

Vance held a 36-10 lead over President Donald Trump's namesake son in a McLaughlin and Associates poll in August and a 38-20 lead over him in October, but the younger Trump narrowed the gap to 34-24 in the most recent poll conducted this month.

The president's own polling has collapsed in recent months, and every major poll has found he has a negative rating for the first time.

"Even a Fox News poll suggested that 61 percent of respondents think that Trump’s administration has damaged the economy, with just 38 percent approving of his economic strategy," The Independent reported. "A further 76 percent said that they view the economy negatively, with Fox analysts pointing to the fact that this is 'worse than the 67 percent who felt that way in July and the 70 percent who said the same at the end of former President Biden’s term.'"

Surveys conducted by YouGov, Gallup, Ipsos, R.M.G, Research, Morning Consult and Quinnipiac found similar negative results for the president, and that unpopularity has dragged down JD Vance but somehow lifted the 79-year-old president's son.

'Sounded warnings': GOP civil war breaks out over JD Vance’s Ukraine plot

Vice President JD Vance has taken on the GOP with his stance on Russia and Ukraine, opening up a new battle within the Republican party.

Vance is at odds with the Republican establishment as the administration pushes forward a peace deal that critics have questioned, Salon's Sophia Tesfaye wrote in an opinion piece published Wednesday.

Vance is facing "following fierce backlash from within his own party to a plan, backed by the administration, to end Russia’s war of aggression as it approaches its fourth year," Tesfaye wrote. And Congressional Republicans are now "openly revolting against the Trump-backed plan."

“Putin has spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool,” former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a statement last week. “If Administration officials are more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace, then the President ought to find new advisors.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is planning to retire, argued that McConnell should have been more clear and warned the administration might be "making Putin feel like he has a win here.”

"While the resistance to the administration is strongest in the Senate, some House Republicans have also sounded warnings," Tesfaye wrote.

Vance's view and proposal was counter to what Republicans expected — calling on Ukraine to reduce its military size, giving Russia control over land it doesn't already have, including areas of Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea.

"The plan reflects more than the reported diplomatic gamble by top Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff flying high off a negotiated settlement to Israel’s war in Gaza," Tesfaye explained. "It reveals the rise of a new GOP foreign policy worldview, one in which Vance is a central architect. And nothing illustrates that better than the man Trump has deployed as his lead emissary in the negotiations: Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll."

Driscoll was Vance's Yale Law School classmate and said the vice president "has turned a global security crisis into a proving ground for his emerging political machine."

McConnell's criticism of President Donald Trump's decisions over the conflict isn't just about the president — it's "threatening Vance’s ascendancy."

"Sending someone so closely tied to Vance — and effectively bypassing the administration’s official Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, who is considered broadly sympathetic to Kyiv and who, perhaps tellingly, will leave his post in January — signals the degree to which the peace framework is aligned with Vance’s worldview. As Army Secretary, Driscoll has already worked closely with the White House on domestic deployments of National Guard troops. Now he is shaping the contours of a major global conflict," Tesfaye added.

The multi-billion dollar liability that could sink JD Vance's presidential dreams

Vice President JD Vance is facing a multi-billion-dollar liability that could sink his presidential dreams — and it's tied to his relationship with Peter Thiel.

The MAGA billionaire and Palantir co-founder helped get Vance elected and now potential voters are growing more "suspicious of big tech and the surveillance state – and they are very wary of the Trump administration’s deepening ties to Palantir," Arwa Mahdawi wrote in an opinion piece for The Guardian Tuesday.

Vance, who is strongly viewed as a potential heir to the MAGA movement, is eyeing a presidential run in 2028. President Donald Trump called a Vance and Marco Rubio pairing "unstoppable" and Rubio has apparently told his inner circle that he would support Vance's run for the job.

But Vance has to face tough reality.

"In his role as vice-president, Vance is already under constant scrutiny. But, as 2028 approaches, he will be put under the microscope. And if he wants to get the top job there are a few liabilities that he should probably sort out," Mahdawi wrote.

"His personality is one of them: Vance can come off as smug and obnoxious. But that’s something he can work on. This is a man, after all, who has changed his name many times; a former atheist who converted to Catholicism in 2019, a few years before running for political office. A man who once called Donald Trump 'America’s Hitler' and now calls him boss. Vance is adept at shape-shifting," Mahdawi explained.

Even the podcast bros and other right-wing figures are starting to take notice of Palantir.

Joe Rogan called the relationship between Palantir and the Trump administration "kinda creepy," citing the government's collection of Americans' personal data and asking "who signed off on this?" Tucker Carlson has also expressed concern over the company's motives and what the administration could use the data for.

"All this is a big problem for Vance because, as he recently acknowledged while speaking to university students: 'I get asked about Palantir a lot because there’s this internet meme out there that somehow I am super in bed with Palantir.' Meme or not, it’s hard to ignore the links between the two, which are, increasingly, generating headlines. You’ve made your bed, Vance; now you’ve got to lie in it," Mahdawi added.

'Completely untrue!' JD Vance smacked down in his home town as he rages about street brawl

A Cincinnati councillor has hit out at JD Vance who commented on a viral clip of a brawl in the streets of the Ohio city.

The vice president, who owns a home in Cincinnati, commented on the footage, as did X CEO Elon Musk, with right wing media claiming it showed a "white man and a woman appearing to be relentlessly targeted by a group of largely Black assailants," per The Guardian.

Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge was put on leave pending an investigation into her leadership.

Vice President Vance, speaking in July when the footage was first released, said, "What I saw, and I haven't seen the full context, but what I saw is a mob of lawless thugs beating up on an innocent person. I hope every single one of those people who engage in violence is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

But councillor Ryan James has since refuted claims made by the Trump administration that Cincinnati has a crime problem. He said, "We need to continue to invest in public safety, but there has been a false inflation of the perception of unsafety in Cincinnati.

"The impacts on our communities from negative stigmas around safety is really damaging. There’s an economic impact of families being afraid to come downtown and to our more densely populated neighborhoods.

"When we have a conversation with people around the [downward] trajectory of crime, it’s always a shocker because people with these huge platforms, are perpetuating narratives that Cincinnati is an unsafe city. It is completely untrue."

James would go on to suggest there is a targeted campaign against Democrats and the Democratic leadership in Cincinnati perpetuated by far right social media accounts. He added, "I think there is a lot of political motivation to disparage Democrats and the Democratic leadership in this city."

While some local business owners say crime has increased, others believe it's "been good" the last three years when compared to previous problems. Mak Alemaye, who runs a convenience store and has done for 15 years, said, "You see these windows – until about three years ago, I’d get a call from the police every two or three weeks, telling me they had been kicked in. I had to get them replaced six times.

"But for the last three years, it's been good; the last time was almost three years ago. When the economy is bad, there's always break-ins, like any other city. Things happen anywhere - why is Cincinnati special?"

This unlikely messenger is exposing Trump's killer weakness

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), according to reporting in Axios, is setting his sights on a 2028 run for the presidency. The report forced Donald Trump to respond to it, and thus to talk about life without him as the leader of MAGA, much less America.

No, Cruz will not be elected president in ‘28 — and we certainly don’t want that to happen — but we should encourage the talk nonetheless, and media should to bring it up more. Apparently, the White House is angry with Cruz for putting it out there, seeing it as undermining Trump — and JD Vance. As NOTUS reports:

The White House and its allies believe Sen. Ted Cruz is taking positions antithetical to President Donald Trump from his perch as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee as a way to position himself against Vice President JD Vance ahead of 2028.

And they’re not happy about it. Cruz has been making life difficult for the White House behind the scenes.

And that’s why it’s a good thing. This week’s outcome of the months-long debacle in Congress over the Epstein files, coming to a head after Republicans saw a Democratic blowout at the polls two weeks ago, underscores that Trump is a lame duck.

The dam burst, as Republicans rushed to vote to force the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files. We have not seen a president rebuked like this in ions, with a veto-proof majority that was nearly unanimous in the House and Senate.

Sure, Trump jumped on the bandwagon and told Republicans to vote for it, but only after he saw he was going to lose big. He could release the files at any time, and didn’t need a bill. He signed the bill — which he had to do, or face that veto-proof majority — with no cameras, nor with the victims by his side, announcing it on Truth Social in the dead of night.

Trump was forced to do something he was loath to do. It doesn’t mean the files will be released, as he’ll go to Plan B or Plan C, working with the DOJ to block them or strip out anything in them about him. While that’s not good for the victims who want justice, any further stonewalling will just keep the story out there. It will never go away, and will continue to bring Trump down.

Trump is the lamest of ducks, as Republicans in states like Indiana now defy his orders to redistrict and further gerrymander. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-GA) went for broke and created a huge clash with Trump. She was the most high-profile deep, dark MAGA figure to break with him, taking a gamble that it would work for her. And it did.

Trump finally exploded and called her a “traitor” — which is rich for so many reasons, including that she’s used that word against so many others — inspiring violent threats against her. None of us knows MTG’s true motives. On Friday, she dropped the stunning news that she would resign from Congress in January. There’s been lots of talk about her positioning herself to run for president too.

Bring it on!

No, MTG will not be elected president. But the more the MAGA base talks about this rift and about other Republicans running for president, the more they show that they’re dividing and also looking at life beyond Trump, who’s dropped his threats — for now — of running for a third term.

Trump’s power over the GOP is slipping, and the Jeffrey Epstein debacle was really a massive exposure of that. NBC News reports that Greene’s voters, while they still support Trump in her blood-red, gerrymandered district in Georgia, also continue to support her.

Before Greene announced her resignation, NBC interviewed voters in her district. Trump had pulled his endorsement of Greene and threatened to back a candidate to primary her. But it doesn’t seem to be working:

“That’s not right. It’s not right,” Debbie Dyer, 60, said of Trump’s accusation. “She should not be seen as a traitor. She’s trying to do the best for the American people and I think Donald Trump should accommodate her and work for America.”

“She has a lot of courage and tells it like it is,” added Dyer, who lives in Dalton, near the Tennessee border, and works at a carpet company.

Trump was hoping the voters would choose between him and Greene, and choose him — his black-and-white world in which you’re either with him or you’re against him — but that doesn’t appear to be happening. This tactic always worked for Trump, but it’s now deflating.

“Some people are struggling with it. Some are choosing Team Marjorie, and some are Team Trump,” said Angela Dollar, a local Republican official in Floyd County, part of Greene’s district.

As for Dollar: “I can like two people who don’t like each other. My hope is they’ll reconcile.”

It seems highly doubtful that Trump is going to destroy Greene. And that’s a big deal.

Of course, none of us should trust or root for Greene, who’s been a vile force in politics, her recent pushback on Trump notwithstanding.

But if Trump no longer has the power to destroy Republicans by backing primaries against them — and as more of them learn that that’s true — we could see the GOP bucking him on a number of issues as we head toward the mid-terms, where Democrats have opened up a big lead in the generic ballot.(A whopping 14 points in one poll, and high single digits in others.)

Republicans are in disarray, with a civil war under way over everything from welcoming holocaust denier Nick Fuentes into the party to fears about the impact of Obamacare subsidies expiring.

The only thing uniting the GOP for years has been a fear of Trump.

But if that fear dissipates, the splits just widen, as they fight one another more and facilitate the MAGA crack up. And that is definitely something to root for.

Michelangelo Signorile writes The Signorile Report, a free and reader-supported Substack. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism.

'Forgets her ring sometimes': Usha Vance's team explains picture that spurred speculations

Raw Story on Friday reported on rumors swirling online after JD Vance's wife appeared in public without a wedding ring, but the second lady's office offered an explanation.

Usha Vance's appearance in public without a wedding ring raised eyebrows among liberal influencers and strategists, who have kept an eye on JD Vance's relationship since the V.P. suggested his wife might one day convert to Christianity. Conservatives, however, jumped to the defense of the second lady.

A spokesperson from Usha Vance's office called Raw Story shortly after the publication of our first article, and then texted a statement that was sent to a conservative news outlet.

In the statement provided to Raw Story, the spokesperson said Usha "is a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths, and forgets her ring sometimes."

'Very interesting': Rumors swirl as JD Vance's wife arrives at event without wedding ring

The internet erupted with intrigue and speculation Friday after several photos showed JD Vance's wife, Usha, arriving at an event alongside Melania Trump, but without her wedding ring.

Usha was recently in the news after her husband mentioned at a speaking event that he hopes she will one day convert from her religion, Hinduism, to his Christian tradition. Speculation about their relationship was also rampant after the vice president shared a close embrace with the widow of deceased conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk.

While past photos of Usha often included a ring, the jewelry wasn't apparent in the recent pictures dropped by reporters.

Dem strategist Adam Parkhomenko wrote, "Interesting. Usha Vance minus a wedding ring yesterday at Camp Lejeune."

Self-described "political junkie" Richard Angwin chimed in, "Usha Vance ditching the ring while posing with Melania screams 'I'm just here for the photo op, not the marriage.'"

One popular influencer, Lucas Sanders, added, "This is very Interesting. Usha Vance minus a wedding ring yesterday at Camp Lejeune."

A popular Trump supporter, Bella (@stockbella), also weighed in, "Liberals are criticizing Usha Vance for not wearing a wedding ring."

A spokesperson for Usha Vance texted Raw Story on Friday with a statement sent to another outlet. In the statement, the spokesperson said Usha "is a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths, and forgets her ring sometimes."

'A complete lie': JD Vance lashes out at MAGA journalist after 'bigot' attack on his staff

U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Sunday lashed out a MAGA journalist who suggested someone on his staff might be a "vile bigot."

Vance over the weekend took to X, where he attacked a self-identified investigative journalist who suggested Tucker Carlson's son, who works for Vance, might be a bigot.

It started when Sloan Rachmuth wrote Saturday, "Today, we learned that Tucker Carlson’s brother idolizes Nick Fuentes. Racism and antisemitism is a Carlson family trait. Is Tucker’s son Buckley, who serves as JD Vance’s top aide also a vile bigot? America deserves to know how deep the Carlson’s family ethnic and religious hatred runs."

That prompted a response form the vice president, who named her directly.

"Sloan Rachmuth is a 'journalist' who has decided to obsessively attack a staffer in his 20s because she doesn't like the views of his father," he said Sunday. "Every time I see a public attack on Buckley it's a complete lie."

"And yes, I notice ever[y] person with an agenda who unfairly attacks a good guy who does a great job for me," Vance then added.

'You own it': JD Vance slapped down on MSNBC after finger-pointing Fox News interview

Reacting to comments made by JD Vance on Thursday night when speaking with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, the panel on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hammered the vice president for deflecting blame on what is currently happening in the U.S. on Joe Biden one year after he lost to Donald Trump.

Sharing a clip of Vance complaining, “I know that there are a lot of people out there who are saying things are expensive, and we have to remember they're expensive because we inherited this terrible inflation crisis from the Biden administration,” among other comments, co-host Mika Brzezinski expressed disgust.

Grimacing, she remarked, “I just — I have a question. How long, how long can you keep this up? This blaming everything on Joe Biden? When you own it, you're in charge. So it's all Joe Biden's fault and the president is finally focused on it and immigrants took all the housing? Got it. Okay, check that one off. That really connects with the American people in a way as they're watching these ICE raids play out.”

Turning to “Morning Joe” contributor Eugene Robinson, she asked, “Gene, I just want to start with you on JD Vance's litany there. It's clear that they're seeing that the affordability issue meant something to the American people, especially given the last election. But we had the president, the commander in chief, calling it a hoax this week or something like that.”

"Yeah, and that doesn't really work,” he laughed. “You can't really tell people that they can afford more, that doesn't work. It also doesn't work to just say ‘Biden, Biden, Biden.’ I mean, I got to hand it to JD Vance for being on message, he stayed on message. But you can't continue doing this as 2025, you know, turns into 2026.”

“You know, we are more than a year past the election,” he noted. “We will be more than a year past the inauguration, and, you know, guess what? On January 20th of next year, those people who can't afford the rent or the mortgage today still won't be able to afford the rent or the mortgage.”

- YouTube youtu.be