By any account, J.D. Vance’s past week was a bad one. Putting aside the viral joke about his (totally invented) sexual union with a couch in Hillbilly Elegy, the Republican pick for vice-president was hammered in the press for his prior comments about “childless cat ladies,” hard-line views on reproductive health, and other nosy opinions about other people’s choices not to have kids. Polls are now suggesting that the Democratic messaging that this man is “weird” may be working. One survey from this week found his approval rating is 14 points underwater.
It was clear that Vance would need to go on the attack this week, defending his current standing from his past self and all the opinions he’s changed over the years. At a stop in Minnesota on Sunday, Vance said that “it doesn’t hurt my feelings” that Democrats are calling him weird. At a rally in Nevada on Tuesday, he even countered with a “wacky” nickname for Kamala Harris. In his tour across America, Vance rose to the level of competence, glad-handing at diners and pushing GOP talking points at swing-state rallies.
There’s just one problem standing in the way of J.D. Vance — and his name is Donald Trump.
At first, the former president defended his vice-presidential nominee, saying on Fox News on Monday that “people that like families” will back J.D. Vance. Vance too said they were on a good footing, telling the website NOTUS that he and Trump “have good relationship and that will keep on going through all the way to November, hopefully past that too.” But then came Trump’s old-school off-the-rails interview on Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists conference.
