Sen. JD Vance tried to paper over former President Donald Trump’s connection with white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes during an interview over the weekend.
Speaking with ABC News’ Jon Karl, Vance was asked about Trump’s widely criticized dinner with Fuentes and the Hitler-loving rapper, Ye in 2022, as well as Fuentes’ recent comments that Trump shouldn’t have picked Vance as a running mate in part because Vance’s wife, Usha, is Indian American.
Trump’s VP pick agreed with Karl’s summation of Fuentes’ attacks on his wife as “racist garbage.”
But after Karl noted “this is also a guy that dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago during this campaign,” Vance chimed in with some spin.
He said:
Well — and that Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about, and frankly, doesn’t care for. But yeah, look, my attitude to these people attacking my wife is, she’s beautiful, she’s smart. What kind of man marries Usha? A very smart man and a very lucky man, importantly. And my view is, look, if these guys want to attack me or attack my views, my policy views, my personality, come after me. But don’t attack my wife. She’s out of your league.
After Vance falsely claimed Trump condemned his own dinner with Fuentes amid the backlash, Karl corrected him and noted that Trump has never condemned Fuentes or his views.
And that’s when Vance claimed his wife’s personal interactions with Trump assured him.
He said:
The one thing I like about Donald Trump, Jon, is that he actually will talk to anybody. But just because you talk to somebody doesn’t mean you endorse their views. And look, I mean, Donald Trump’s spent a lot of quality time with my wife. Every time he sees her, he gives her a hug, tells us she’s beautiful, and jokes around with her a little bit. I’m not at all worried about Donald Trump. I’m worried sometimes about these ridiculous attacks. But again, this is what you sign up for when you come into politics. I wish people would keep it focused on me, but whatever. They’re going to say what they’re going to say. My wife’s tough enough to handle it, and that’s a good thing.
Evidently, Vance wants us to believe Trump’s willingness to dine with an avowed white supremacist and a Nazi-loving rapper is merely a sign of his welcoming nature.
And Vance doesn’t appear to have any qualms about using his Indian American wife, or her purportedly amiable interactions with Trump, to downplay the questions about the candidate’s ties to white supremacy and antisemitic hate. Usha Vance previously sat for an interview and attempted to downplay her husband’s misogynistic “childless cat ladies” comment. Now, her husband is using her ethnicity and gender to downplay Trump’s deference to bigots.
Republicans have spent the better part of the past two weeks ridiculously accusing Democrats of antisemitism after Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish.
Meanwhile, Trump and the GOP’s open association with antisemitic figures, including Fuentes and Ye, go unmentioned. Republicans haven’t devised a cogent explanation for this hypocrisy. And if Vance’s remarks are any sign, they won’t anytime soon.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.