J.D. Vance Spends Weird, Low-Energy Speech Praising Diet Mountain Dew

J.D. Vance’s weird, anti-woke punch line fell flat at his own sleepy speaking event on Monday.

Vance held a rally at his former high school in Middletown, Ohio, where hundreds gathered to hear the views of Donald Trump’s newly minted vice presidential candidate. But even as a hometown hero, the Ohio senator suffered some brutally awkward moments.

“It is the weirdest thing to me: Democrats say that it is racist to believe—well, they say it’s racist to do anything,” said Vance. “I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday, and one today. I’m sure they’re probably gonna call that racist too.” Around the room there were some scattered laughs.

“It’s good,” he said after a beat, drawing more polite laughter from the rally attendees. Vance let out his own breathy laugh at his comment, slapping the podium in front of him. “I love you guys,” he said, smiling and laughing.

Vance’s weak swing at a joke landed as a lazy attempt to score some culture-war points. And that wasn’t the only cringey moment during his time on stage. While there was a lot of laughter throughout Vance’s 40-minute speech, much of it appeared to come from him.

“I was told I was going to get to debate Kamala Harris; now President Trump is going to get to debate her?” Vance said, laughing again. At one point, he lost his train of thought after the crowd began to boo Harris, and started nervously laughing again.

While this would escape the interest of any normal person, it’s worth noting because his running mate has repeatedly called Vice President Kamala Harris “Laughing Kamala.” Like Vance’s quip about diet soda, this approach to criticism seems to stem from having absolutely nothing of substance to say about a subject, but giving it their best shot anyway.

Overall, the Republican’s performance was so underwhelming that even Fox News stopped airing coverage of Vance’s speech in the middle of his remarks.

Vance’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week was similarly kind of boring. At the time, it seemed like it could be an intentional play not to overshadow Trump, which the former president famously hates. But with Vance’s most recent display, it seems that sluggish performance might’ve been unavoidable.

Kamala Harris will most likely not appear beside Benjamin Netanyahu when he speaks to Congress this week. Former senior Biden administration officials say that was likely by design.

Harris declined to attend Netanyahu’s joint address later this week, Axios journalist Juliegrace Brufke reported Monday. And the decision was made before Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the 2024 race.

The vice president would have sat directly behind Netanyahu’s podium during the Wednesday event. Instead, last week, Biden’s campaign had scheduled her to speak in Indianapolis.

“That probably wasn’t an accident,” a former senior administration official told The Times of Israel. The source theorized that Biden may keep Harris away from the White House while Netanyahu is in town to avoid images that feature Harris associating with the Israeli prime minister. This would mark a significant shift in U.S. policy, if appearing with Netanyahu is suddenly viewed as a bad thing.

At the same time, Harris is receiving flack from Zionist organizations over comments she made about student protests in support of Palestine in an interview with The Nation earlier this month. The Zionist Organization of America accused Harris of endorsing “Arab Islamist criminality,” among other racist remarks.

However, a current U.S. official said that a future Harris administration’s policies on Palestine won’t differ much from Biden’s. “Vice President Harris shares President Biden’s support for an iron-clad U.S. commitment to Israel’s security coupled with a commitment to advancing a two-state solution in order to bring an end to this cycle of violence,” the official said, speaking anonymously.

But Biden may also snub Netanyahu. A senior official in his office told reporters that Netanyahu may not meet with the U.S. president after all. Meanwhile, a record number of Democrats are set to boycott Netanyahu’s speech.

Representative Nancy Pelosi is throwing her “enthusiastic support” behind Kamala Harris for president.

“Today, it is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States,” Pelosi wrote in a statement Monday. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal and political.”

Despite holding off a day longer than other Democrats, the fellow Bay Area politician has made clear she approves of Joe Biden’s decision to step down and hand the torch to Harris.

“Officially, I have seen Kamala Harris’s strength and courage as a champion for working families, notably fighting for a woman’s right to choose. Personally, I have known Kamala Harris for decades as rooted in strong values, faith and a commitment to public service,” she wrote. “Politically, make no mistake: Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute—and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”

After Biden dropped out, Pelosi and Harris spoke by phone on Sunday, according to Axios.

Though Pelosi never officially called for Biden to step down, she played a critical role in strong-arming him to bow out. Privately, Pelosi warned Biden about the ripple effects for other Democrats on the ballot. Additionally, she appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe saying she wanted Biden “to do whatever he decides to do,” while at the time Biden had made clear he planned to remain in the race.

While much of the Democratic establishment is falling in line behind Harris, those yet to endorse her include former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke with Donald Trump earlier this month about getting a job in the White House in exchange for endorsing him as president.

The Washington Post reported Monday that in the hours after Trump’s attempted assassination last week, Kennedy received a message from the former president’s team asking to talk. At the time, Kennedy had been giving interviews about the attack.

Later that night, the two men spoke on the phone, and weighed the price of Kennedy’s support: a job in Trump’s administration. But apparently Kennedy’s job interview quickly fell apart.

Some on Trump’s team were reportedly concerned about offering the independent candidate an official role in return for his endorsement, according to sources who spoke with the Post on the condition of anonymity. So nothing materialized for either candidate.

A segment of a phone call between Kennedy and Trump was previously leaked on social media, in which the former president could be heard claiming that vaccines cause autism. Although Kennedy insisted before Congress last summer that he had “never been anti-vaxx,” he previously claimed that there was “no vaccine that was safe and effective,” and said he believed vaccines cause autism.

“I would love you to do something,” Trump said during that call. “And I think it would be so good for you. And so big for you. And we’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re way ahead of the guy.” It was previously unclear what exactly Trump was referring to, but now it seems likely they were talking about a potential gig for the conspiracy-touting independent.

Kennedy apologized for the leak, and on Monday, he began praising Trump. “I have a lot of respect for President Trump for reaching out to me. Nobody from the DNC, high or low, has ever reached out to me in 18 months. Instead they have allocated millions to try to disrupt my campaign,” he said in an interview with the Post.

He added that he would continue his campaign.

A Trump spokesperson tried to downplay the significance of the meeting between the two. “President Trump met with RFK and they had a conversation about the issues just as he does regularly with important figures in business and politics because they all recognize he will be the next president of the United States,” said Danielle Alvarez.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris Monday morning and ripped Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance in the process.

Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Beshear touted Harris’s previous record as a prosecutor, saying that she is “kind and has empathy, which can make her a great president.

“The contrast between her and those running on the other side couldn’t be clearer,” Beshear said, pointing out that Harris prosecuted rapists and abusers, while Vance’s words about rape were egregious.

“Vance calls pregnancy arising from rape ‘inconvenient.’ No, it’s just plain wrong,” Beshear said. “He suggests that women should stay in abusive relationships. Listen, a domestic abuser isn’t a man, he’s a monster.”

Beshear’s endorsement carries a lot of weight, as he’s a twice-elected Democratic governor presiding over a red Southern state in Kentucky. He also has been discussed as a possible vice presidential running mate for Harris, even before Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential election Sunday, and in Monday’s interview, he hinted that he would be interested in the role.

“The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believe I could further help my people and to help this country,” Beshear said. When pressed further, he added, “I think if somebody calls you on that, what you do is you at least listen.”

Beshear is one of the most popular governors in America. An October poll found that he has the highest net approval rating of any Democratic governor in a red state. As Harris and her campaign decide who would be the ideal running mate for the Democratic ticket, Beshear’s success in Kentucky can only help his prospects.

On Monday, Mike Pence praised Biden’s decision to end his presidential bid and called for national unity. Despite the normalcy of Pence’s rhetoric, MAGA posters immediately began blasting the former vice president for his supposed traitorousness.

“President Joe Biden made the right decision for our country and I thank him for putting the interests of our Nation ahead of his own,” Pence wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “After the assassination attempt on President Trump and President Biden’s decision to end his campaign, now is a time for leaders in both parties to project calm and send a message of strength and resolve to America’s friends and enemies alike that, whatever the state of our politics, the American people are strong and our American military stands ready to defend our freedom and our vital national interests anywhere in the world.”

The statement was a tame call for national unity (albeit with some jingoism peppered in). Pence biographer Tom LoBianco called it “remarkably normal given the tone of things.”

But Pence has been persona non grata in Trump world since his refusal to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and his post was flooded with replies deeming his banal call for civility further proof of his turncoat status.

The conservative interest group the Association of Mature American Citizens posted, “Praising Biden, pathetic.” Conservative commentator Joey Mannarino said, “This is why we consider you a traitor, Mike. Fuck off.” Various other MAGA accounts left comments like, “Judas Pence has spoken,” “You knew what was at risk by certifying a stolen election yet you did it anyway,” “We are only in this mess because of you, so shut the fuck up,” and so on.

The MAGA outrage over Pence’s quite ordinary statement reveals his own party’s limited appetite for the unity he espouses.

Republicans may be starting to second-guess their party’s pick for vice president.

Much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, including the decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, was structured around attacks on President Joe Biden. But then Biden announced Sunday that he was withdrawing from the presidential race altogether.

Trump campaign officials acknowledged that Trump selected the inexperienced Vance, charged with all his techno-authoritarian ideas, to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters, according to The Atlantic. Vance was a symbol of the Trump team’s assuredness that they would win in 2024. Come Sunday, that assuredness appears to be shrinking.

“Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was [born] of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter,” Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta, who had written the piece about the panicking Trump campaign, posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Trump decried Biden’s decision to drop out in a post on Truth Social, writing that his team would have to “start all over again” and asking to be reimbursed for the cost. At the same time, Vance has set straight to work, calling for Biden to resign from the presidency.

Meanwhile, the Democrats possess a new potential nominee in the form of Vice President Kamala Harris. And as a result, the party had one of the best fundraising days ever.

The MAGA right has a new conspiracy theory about Joe Biden following his announcement to drop out of the presidential race: He is either dead or incapacitated and needs to show “proof of life.”

Many conservative figures are posting that Biden hasn’t made any public appearances in the last few days, especially since he posted his letter to withdraw Sunday. Representative Lauren Boebert jumped on the conspiracy, insinuating that Biden didn’t make the decision himself but that it was made for him due to his diminished mental state.

Boebert wasn’t the only member of Congress claiming that Biden’s absence was suspicious.

Other right-wing figures saw something nefarious in Biden’s signature, saying that it was conspicuously different from how the president usually signs documents.

Right-wing tech mogul David Sacks made a reference to the film Weekend at Bernie’s, where a dead man is propped up and passed off as alive, perfectly summing up what the right thinks about Biden right now.

In reality, Biden has been isolating in his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after being diagnosed with Covid-19 last week. While the decision to make his announcement withdrawing from the race via social media is unusual, perhaps he hasn’t wanted to make any formal announcements or press conferences from a beach house while sick. In his announcement Sunday, he said he would address the nation later this week. Regardless, conservatives aren’t posting out of any concern for the president: They’re going nuts still trying to process Biden’s decision.

The 2024 presidential race has seen both parties’ nominees bedeviled by concerns about their age and fitness. But after Biden’s decision to step aside on Sunday, Democrats have shed such concerns—and the words of Nikki Haley, who railed against gerontocracy during her campaign for the Republican nomination, have come back to haunt Donald Trump.

Haley was an early observer of the public’s dissatisfaction with both candidates’ ages, going so far as to predict that fortune would favor the party that first dropped their elderly candidate. After losing the New Hampshire primary in January, Haley took a shot at both presumptive nominees, prophesying that “the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.”

While the 81-year-old Biden has certainly faced the brunt of age concerns recently, a July ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 58 percent of Americans saw both Biden and Trump as “too old for a second term.” With Biden out of the race, Haley’s warning is being widely shared by Democrats celebrating the party’s newfound advantage against Trump, who is now the oldest nominee in U.S. history.

Of course, one wonders whether Haley, who has since “strongly endorsed” Trump, maintains her prediction. As to its prescience, we’ll have to wait until the election draws nearer to see.

J.D. Vance has joined the chorus of conservatives who have begun claiming that President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race constitutes a so-called “coup” in the Democratic Party.

In an interview filmed on Saturday with Fox News’s Jesse Watters, a clip of which aired on Fox & Friends Monday morning, Watters asked former President Donald Trump and his newly minted running mate, Vance, the new question plaguing Republicans: “Is it a coup against Joe Biden?” Both of them fumbled their answers.

“Uh, sort of,” Trump said unsure, looking over to Vance for explanation.

At the time the interview was filmed, Biden had not yet dropped out of the race, nor endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump seemed ambivalent about whether switching to Harris would be a coup, while Vance took the opportunity to be more outspoken.

“I think it is,” Vance said. “Look, there’s a constitutional process, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. If Joe Biden can’t run for president, he can’t serve as president. And if they want to take him down because he’s mentally incapable of serving, invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

“You don’t get to sort of do this in the most politically beneficial way for Democrats. If it’s an actual problem, they should take care of it in the appropriate way,” Vance added.

Both Trump and Vance are going to need to get a lot better at answering this question, unless they can resign themselves to the fact that a presidential candidate dropping out is not antidemocratic. Vance’s brief answer failed to explain why an 81-year-old’s decision to opt out of rigorous campaigning and another four-year term, but not resign in the next four months, would constitute a coup.

Across the board, Republicans haven’t seemed to settle on a party line about Biden’s withdrawal, except that they all think it’s totally unfair.

“Joe Biden succumbed to a coup by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hollywood donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes,” wrote Senator Tom Cotton in a post on X.

MAGA Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also weighed in on X. “There’s a soft civil war happening in the deep state and the elites in power. The Democrats, the IC, and their activists in the media have been lying to us saying there’s nothing wrong with Biden for years,” she wrote. “Next, they start a coup against him demanding he drop out of the race when they couldn’t hide it anymore.”

Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec wrote on X that Biden’s decision to drop out indicated that he’d already been removed from power altogether. “Right now we do not have an elected leader running this country,” he wrote. “The most powerful nation in the world is being run by bureaucrats and a shadow government.”

Trump’s former senior adviser Stephen Miller called it the “defenestration of Biden.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t call it a coup, but he suggested it was undemocratic in a post on X. “Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed ‘party of democracy’ has proven exactly the opposite,” wrote Johnson.

Johnson has been working in tandem with the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025, to set the stage for chaos by continuing to insist that Democrats will face a number of legal challenges when getting another candidate’s name on the ballot, a bid that election law experts have firmly disputed. If the Democratic Party were to replace Biden as their party’s nominee, that would be one thing, but he was never the official nominee in the first place.