It\u2019s been a long 42 days since the White House held its last press briefing and over six months since it started its \u201cvery fast,\u201d \u201ctwo- to three-week\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s promises about affordability look increasingly awkward. Republicans are getting increasingly nervous about the midterms.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Still, at least it\u2019s not Pete Hegseth. It 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\u2019s summer reading challenge, throwing in vintage Vance tidbits like, \u201cNot to brag on my boss too much, but I do think he\u2019s set us out to be the most transparent admin in history.\u201d Aw, shucks, JD, you just couldn\u2019t help but say it! Ain\u2019t it cute?<\/p>\n
Then there were the swift retorts to reporters in the room asking questions about high prices, inflation and the economy. Why shouldn\u2019t we blame Republicans for this mess, came the first question? Well, because inflation actually became \u201cendemic\u201d under the Biden administration, Vance said smoothly, but anyway, \u201cI don\u2019t really care who\u2019s to blame for it\u201d 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\u2019m sure it\u2019ll show up sometime.<\/p>\n
As for the Democrats, \u201cevery inflation problem you\u2019re worrying about today, they\u2019re gonna make worse,\u201d Vance concluded, which isn\u2019t exactly a shiningly optimistic campaign slogan but truthfully, it\u2019s all the Trump administration has: Stuff sucks, but maybe it could suck worse.<\/p>\n
There was a strange aside about the VP\u2019s 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. \u201cI\u2019m a devout Christian,\u201d Vance said, during this segment, adding that it\u2019s important for him, during Lent, to \u201cdo some kind of self-denial.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is it incumbent on the United States of America\u201d to fix the global energy crisis they created, he asked at one point? Gas prices \u201ccould\u2019ve been much higher,\u201d by the way. \u201cThe only reason we don\u2019t have a worldwide energy crisis is because of the president,\u201d he added, before concluding that \u201cmy advice to the Iranians is to stop acting like crazy people.\u201d Truly, the pinnacle of diplomacy.<\/p>\n
Questioned about the chaos inside the Department of Defense (still called that, despite claims that it\u2019s now all War), he said simply that he agreed \u201cstridently\u201d with Pete Hegseth that a culture change was needed. \u201cPete wanted to revive the warrior spirit,\u201d he added, and anyway, \u201cpeople didn\u2019t want to join a woke military.\u201d Hell yeah! Who wants a woke military, with stupid rules of engagement, and wedding parties and girls\u2019 schools left un-decimated? Pass the Huel, boys!<\/p>\n
There was a jab at Joe Biden during an uncomfortable aside about the 911 anniversary that came across as petty and cruel (\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to hanging out with Joe Biden,\u201d Vance said sarcastically, while confirming that he will be in New York on the day. \u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019ll have many, many intense, intellectual conversations.\u201d) There was a silly-sounding plea directly to Iranians: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to stop shooting at commercial shipping. They\u2019ve gotta stop!\u201d<\/p>\n
Somewhat entertainingly, there was also a moment when Vance was asked about people\u2019s concerns over loud, energy-guzzling data centres being built in their backyards. \u201cLook, man,\u201d Vance said to the questioner, \u201cthe way you bridge that gap is by following the president of the United State\u2019s lead.\u201d What he means by that, he added, is that we\u2019re going to \u201cbecome a nation of builders again,\u201d and that Trump made it easy to also build nuclear power stations beside those data centres.<\/p>\n
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 centreand a nuclear reactor. Murikkkaaa!! \u201cThis backlash on data centres, I think it\u2019s downstream of the fact that the United States doesn\u2019t build enough,\u201d Vance concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a long 42 days since the White House held its last press briefing and over six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[119],"tags":[169,168,31350,51,107,987],"class_list":["post-215924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jd-vance","tag-james-david-vance","tag-jd-vance","tag-policies","tag-politics","tag-us","tag-white-house"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117217064558252753","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}