{"id":298143,"date":"2025-10-12T20:29:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T20:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298143\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T20:29:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T20:29:13","slug":"j-d-vance-tried-to-evade-journalists-questions-it-did-not-go-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298143\/","title":{"rendered":"J.D. Vance Tried to Evade Journalists’ Questions. It Did Not Go Well"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJ.D. Vance<\/a> struggled to defend the Trump administration\u2019s decisions when journalists asked him basic questions during a round of TV appearances, with one host getting so frustrated with Vance\u2019s word salad, he cut the interview short in the middle of one of the vice president\u2019s sentences.<\/p>\n

\n\tVance appeared on several Sunday morning shows. During an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC\u2019s This Week, the host asked Vance about Trump Border Czar Tom Homan, whom the FBI says accepted a $50,000 bag of cash from an undercover agent in a bribery investigation near the end of the Biden administration. Homan allegedly pledged to grant government contracts related to immigration in return for the money.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe White House border czar, Tom Homan, was recorded on an FBI surveillance tape in September 2024 accepting $50,000 in cash. Did he keep that money or give it back?\u201d Stephanopoulos asked Vance.<\/p>\n

\n\tVance tried to spin the story as a \u201cridiculous smear\u201d and painted Homan as a target \u201cbecause he\u2019s doing the job of enforcing the law.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn’t insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.VANCE: No, George, I sai\u2013STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ll be right back<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2025-10-12T15:33:17.280Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tHoman has denied the allegations. \u201cLook, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal,\u201d he said<\/a> during a Fox News interview, but he did not explicitly deny accepting the cash. The Trump DOJ also concluded no criminal wrongdoing took place, but when Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General Pam Bondi about what happened to the cash, she refused to answer<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was recorded on an audiotape in September of 2024, an FBI surveillance tape, accepting $50,000 in cash. Did he keep that money?\u201d Stephanopoulos pressed Vance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAccepting $50,000 for doing what, George?\u201d Vance said. \u201cI am not even sure I understand the question. Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services? The FBI has not prosecuted him. I have never seen any evidence that he\u2019s engaged in criminal wrongdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVance went on to call the line of questioning a \u201cleft-wing rabbit hole.\u201d After that comment, Stephanopoulos quickly ended the interview.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not a weird left-wing rabbit hole. I didn\u2019t insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50,000, as was heard on an audiotape recorded by the FBI in September 2024, and you did not answer the question. Thank you for your time this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo, George, I said that I don\u2019t \u2014\u201d Vance started to say, but the show cut away to a commercial break.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier in the interview, Stephanopoulos asked Vance whether he agreed with President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s assertion that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker<\/a> \u201cshould be in jail\u201d for \u201cfailing to protect\u201d ICE officers in his state.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve seen the law. And when you have a group of people where the police call off the safety for ICE officials, I\u2019ve understood that, and I\u2019ve read it today in numerous journals, that that\u2019s illegal,\u201d Trump said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPresident Trump has said that he should be in jail. Do you think Governor Pritzker has committed a crime?\u201d Stephanopoulos asked Vance.<\/p>\n

\n\tVance tried to dodge the question by saying that Pritzker \u201chas certainly failed to keep the people of Illinois safe.\u201d (Meanwhile, violent crime in Chicago in recent months hit its lowest point in four decades.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI asked if you agree with President Trump that Governor Pritzker has committed a crime,\u201d Stephanopoulos responded. But Vance kept dodging the question.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n

STEPHANOPOULOS: Trump said Pritzker should be in jail. Do you think he has committed a crime?VANCE: I think Pritzker has certainly failed to keep the people of Illinois safeS: It’s a yes or no questionV: I certainly think he has violated his fundamental oath. That seems pretty criminal to me<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2025-10-12T15:25:38.052Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\u201cGeorge, you\u2019re going to keep on asking this question. I\u2019m going to keep on telling you that Governor Pritzker failed to do his job,\u201d Vance said. \u201cHe should suffer some consequences. Whether he\u2019s violated a crime, ultimately, I would leave to the courts. But I certainly think that he has violated his fundamental oath of office. That seems pretty criminal to me. I\u2019d leave it to a judge and jury to decide whether he\u2019s actually violated the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver on NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, Vance faced questions about recent layoffs of more than 1,000 federal employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including those who are leading the nation\u2019s response to measles and workers who would respond to an Ebola outbreak. (Some of those layoffs will be reversed, the administration announced later, blaming a coding error for the wrongful terminations.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDuring the 2019 shutdown, under the first Trump administration, which lasted 35 days, no federal workers were laid off. Why are these firings necessary?\u201d host Kirsten Welker asked the vice president.<\/p>\n

\n

WELKER: During the 2019 shutdown when Trump was president, no federal workers were laid off. Why are these firings necessary?VANCE: Who do we care more about- federal bureaucrats or the troops getting the payment they need?WELKER: But layoffs are a priority?VANCE: They have forced us to choose<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2025-10-12T14:15:24.667Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have to lay off some federal workers in the midst of this shutdown to preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

\n\tExcept usually during a shutdown, including the last government shutdown under the first Trump administration, federal employees are furloughed, meaning their work and compensation temporarily stop until the shutdown ends. That\u2019s very different from layoffs.<\/p>\n

\n\tVance tried to say that the layoffs were done \u201cto preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide.\u201d Except how is that the case? If the workers would not be paid during the shutdown anyway, what immediate cost savings would layoffs bring?<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tVance even tried to blame Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> for the erroneous firings, despite Schumer having no authority over federal worker layoffs. \u201cThe government shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos,\u201d Vance said. \u201cWe are figuring out how to take money from some areas and give it to other areas. That chaos is because Schumer and the far-left Democrats shut down the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to a recent Ipsos poll<\/a>, Americans mostly \u2014 by a slim margin \u2014 blame congressional Republicans for the shutdown (67 percent), followed by Democrats (63 percent) and Trump (63 percent). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"J.D. Vance struggled to defend the Trump administration\u2019s decisions when journalists asked him basic questions during a round…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":298144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[14964,69,72794,9851,50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-298143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-chuck-schumer","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-j-b-pritzker","12":"tag-j-d-vance","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115363092587067678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}