It’s been a long 42 days since the White House held its last press briefing and over six months since it started its “very fast,” “two- to three-week” war with Iran. Karoline Leavitt has since left the podium, having very briefly returned from maternity leave, taken another good look at the job and departed permanently.
So we were treated to something a little different on Thursday afternoon: JD Vance, giver of icks to women everywhere, here to reassure the country that everything is totally and completely fine.
This is not the easiest moment to make the case that everything is fine. The Iran war is still grinding on, having already cost Americans tens of billions of dollars. Oil prices and inflation are making the administration’s promises about affordability look increasingly awkward. Republicans are getting increasingly nervous about the midterms.
And as a bizarre cherry on top, Vance took on this job just one day after he publicly mused that the antichrist might be walking among us, an impression that may or may not be informed by the company he keeps.
Still, at least it’s not Pete Hegseth.
open image in galleryIt was a surprisingly long press conference, running for an hour after the veep turned up 45 minutes late. He was quick and businesslike at the beginning, rattling out lines about Venezuelan oil and the second lady’s summer reading challenge, throwing in vintage Vance tidbits like, “Not to brag on my boss too much, but I do think he’s set us out to be the most transparent admin in history.” Aw, shucks, JD, you just couldn’t help but say it! Ain’t it cute?
Then there were the swift retorts to reporters in the room asking questions about high prices, inflation and the economy. Why shouldn’t we blame Republicans for this mess, came the first question? Well, because inflation actually became “endemic” under the Biden administration, Vance said smoothly, but anyway, “I don’t really care who’s to blame for it” because he just wants to fix it. The problem is that actually the economy is fantastic because new factories are being built everywhere, but building takes time, and the Golden Age is just around the corner. Keep on voting and I’m sure it’ll show up sometime.
As for the Democrats, “every inflation problem you’re worrying about today, they’re gonna make worse,” Vance concluded, which isn’t exactly a shiningly optimistic campaign slogan but truthfully, it’s all the Trump administration has: Stuff sucks, but maybe it could suck worse.
There was a strange aside about the VP’s recent weight loss which, he says, came about because he asked RFK Jr for weight loss advice during Lent and was told to eat lots of sauerkraut. “I’m a devout Christian,” Vance said, during this segment, adding that it’s important for him, during Lent, to “do some kind of self-denial.” He then went on, appropriately enough, to deny that Trump caused the problems in the Strait of Hormuz, to deny that there even is an energy issue, and even to deny that the Iran war is a war in the first place.
“Why is it incumbent on the United States of America” to fix the global energy crisis they created, he asked at one point? Gas prices “could’ve been much higher,” by the way. “The only reason we don’t have a worldwide energy crisis is because of the president,” he added, before concluding that “my advice to the Iranians is to stop acting like crazy people.” Truly, the pinnacle of diplomacy.
Questioned about the chaos inside the Department of Defense (still called that, despite claims that it’s now all War), he said simply that he agreed “stridently” with Pete Hegseth that a culture change was needed. “Pete wanted to revive the warrior spirit,” he added, and anyway, “people didn’t want to join a woke military.” Hell yeah! Who wants a woke military, with stupid rules of engagement, and wedding parties and girls’ schools left un-decimated? Pass the Huel, boys!
open image in galleryThere was a jab at Joe Biden during an uncomfortable aside about the 9/11 anniversary that came across as petty and cruel (“I’m really looking forward to hanging out with Joe Biden,” Vance said sarcastically, while confirming that he will be in New York on the day. “I’m sure we’ll have many, many intense, intellectual conversations.”) There was a silly-sounding plea directly to Iranians: “You’ve got to stop shooting at commercial shipping. They’ve gotta stop!”
Somewhat entertainingly, there was also a moment when Vance was asked about people’s concerns over loud, energy-guzzling data centers being built in their backyards. “Look, man,” Vance said to the questioner, “the way you bridge that gap is by following the president of the United State’s lead.” What he means by that, he added, is that we’re going to “become a nation of builders again,” and that Trump made it easy to also build nuclear power stations beside those data centers.
Presumably what he intended to convey here was that those power stations might offset some of the raised energy prices, but he actually painted a dystopian picture of a suburban family surrounded on both sides by a rattling data center and a nuclear reactor. Murikkkaaa!! “This backlash on data centers, I think it’s downstream of the fact that the United States doesn’t build enough,” Vance concluded, in a sort of overconfident gibberish.
Things started coming undone as time went on. Although Vance is a talented speaker, he gets himself into trouble when he ad-libs: on the deaths of Iranian wedding guests, he said that “sometimes things just happen” and when asked when the war would end, he ended up at: “When you ask me when this will end… you would have to ask the Iranians.”
This is, frankly, a shocking thing to say. He tried to deflect it into the real question being, “When will Iranians shooting at ships stop affecting the world energy markets?” but that isn’t actually the question, and nobody is even pretending that they think it is, so it fell very flat.
On 2028, he didn’t want to “take the bait” by answering a question about Cruz or Hegseth running, and he made a show of looking pained before stating that all he wants to do is get as many Republicans as possible elected in the midterms so they can do as much good as possible in the next two years! He’s just that kind of a guy!
On Milo Yiannopolous, he slithered out of a question about whether Trump knew in advance the far-right agitator had been deported by saying that “the last administration brought in so many illegal aliens” no one can “keep track of everyone” who’s being kicked out.
And finally, when invited to do an elevator pitch for the midterms, he leaned on scaremongering: “On every issue, Democrats have taken the side of fraudsters, of criminals… over the american people,” he said, adding that his is the party of “law and order.”
He left the room to the lingering shouted question of: “If it’s not a war, what is it?” And what is it, indeed? If only we were all as devout as JD Vance, and as committed to a diet of self-denial.