Watch: J.D. Vance Makes an Unfortunate Couch Joke at Nevada Rally

A false rumor has been circulating online that claims Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance once performed a sexual act with a couch. Why, then, did the Ohio senator make a couch joke at a rally in Nevada?

On Tuesday night, Vance decided to bring up sofas while speaking about his wife, Usha.

“Now, I would call her up here to come and speak, but then I think I’d have to sleep on the couch tonight, so I’ll leave her alone,” Vance said.

The joke only got some tepid laughter, and plenty of mockery online.

This is not likely to help Vance and Republicans fight the assertion that they’re weird, as the Democrats keep saying. The attack line is working, and driving the GOP insane. Republicans still haven’t come up with a good comeback for it, and right-wing media can’t handle it either. Trump can’t really explain why he chose the Ohio senator as his running mate (it was reportedly to shore up his white male base), and some Republicans are starting to regret the choice. If Vance wants the “weird” attacks to go away and improve his standing, he can’t make slipups like this.

Senator Marco Rubio tried to come up with a comeback to Democrats’ criticisms of Donald Trump and the Republican Party as “weird,” and it’s rather lame.

“They called us weird so I’ll call them weirder. That’s what I used to do back in high school,” Rubio told HuffPost’s Igor Bobic on Tuesday.

Naturally, this immediately drew mockery online.

It’s not really a surprise that Rubio’s attempt to respond was lackluster. He had no answer when Trump called him “Little Marco” during the 2016 presidential campaign. In fact, Rubio tried to land an insult about Trump’s small hands back then, only for it to go nowhere.

Rubio, like other Republicans, can’t seem to come up with an answer to what surprisingly has been one of the Democrats’ most effective attack lines in years, trying and failing each time. It’s one that’s been a long time coming, considering the weird turn that conservatives such as Trump and J.D. Vance have taken in the last few years.

And every day, Republicans say something new to strengthen the argument, whether it’s getting triggered by the Olympics or complaining about “childless cat ladies.” Basically, they can’t stop owning themselves.

It looks like Donald Trump may be heading back to court before the polls open in November, and he’ll once again be going head-to-head with author E. Jean Carroll.

A federal appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for September 6, as part of Trump’s appeal of the May 2023 verdict in his first trial against Carroll. At the time, a jury unanimously found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, and ordered him to pay her $5 million.

Lawyers for Carroll had filed a motion to a federal appeals court in May this year to expedite Trump’s appeal, arguing that Trump would use his campaign as an excuse not to sit in court.

“Donald J. Trump has demonstrated a clear pattern of dilatory, obstructionist, and bad faith conduct throughout these proceedings,” the motion said. “With the pendency of the general presidential election campaign (which will intensify in the fall), not to mention several active state and federal criminal proceedings, Mr. Trump may well contend that any oral argument scheduled for later in 2024 must be deferred until early 2025—at which point he could be preparing for an inauguration or awaiting another criminal trial.”

While Trump will likely try to worm his way out of the very proceedings he requested, it seems like some people are very much looking forward to it.

“I AM READY!!!!” Carroll wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

In January, Trump paid a hefty bond and filed to appeal the verdict in his other case against Carroll, after a jury ordered that he fork out a whopping $83 million to the author for repeatedly defaming her.

If oral arguments proceed as planned, they will take place less than two weeks before the former president is scheduled to attend a sentencing hearing for his 34-count criminal conviction in his hush-money case.

However, the judge in that case, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, suggested that Trump’s sentencing may not come to pass due to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to grant Trump presidential immunity for “official acts,” which may have potentially rendered some evidence inadmissible.

As expected, the Senate hearing on Donald Trump’s assassination attempt got heated.

Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees about security failures at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Senator Ted Cruz, of course, attempted to escalate the hearing and make it a partisan affair, yelling and interrupting Rowe as he spoke.

“Hold on, you are using ‘president’ in a way that’s not clear,” Cruz interjected. “Is it your testimony that in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump had the same number of agents protecting him that Joe Biden has at a comparable event?”

Someone should probably remind Cruz that Trump is not the sitting president, and therefore does not receive the same number of agents. Rowe stepped up to be that someone.

“Senator, there is a difference between the sitting president of the United States,” an exasperated Rowe began before a screaming Cruz interrupted again.

“What’s the difference?” Cruz asked.

“National command authority to launch a nuclear strike,” answered Rowe. The exchange only escalated further until the two men were yelling over each other.

“Stop interrupting me,” Cruz ironically responded at one point. “You are refusing to answer clear and direct questions.”

Cruz was not the only Republican politician to raise his voice at the hearing. “Fire somebody,” Senator Josh Hawley shouted, to which Rowe replied: “We have to be able to have a proper investigation into this.”

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned following the July 13 shooting.

The director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, announced Tuesday that he is stepping down from his role.

The move comes after a wave of public criticism, led by Democrats, over the conservative manifesto and the Heritage Foundation, the think tank that backs it. The project’s agenda items include everything from the dismantling of government agencies, such as the Department of Education, to the implementation of national abortion bans and contraception restrictions.

Dans said in his email that others on the project’s team will continue to push for its implementation in a conservative presidential campaign, and that he will be directing his efforts toward “winning, bigly!” in November. He also told Heritage Foundation staff earlier this week about his departure.

Thanks to the increased public attention on the project, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has attempted to distance himself from the 900-page document. According to Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast, Dans’s departure comes after pressure from the Trump campaign, partially due to a power struggle for control over staffing in a possible Trump presidential administration.

This would seem to align with what Trump campaign officials have said publicly. One of Trump’s campaign managers, Chris LaCivita, recently called Project 2025 a “pain in the ass.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is annoyed that it has received so much attention, and he resents the implication that the project is behind his policies and choosing his presidential staff.

On Tuesday, after the news of Dans’s resignation spread, the Trump campaign celebrated in an email written by LaCavita and co-campaign manager Susie Wiles.

Bizarrely, Dans’s departure seems to be yet more evidence of Trump’s influence on Project 2025. Vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance also has connections to the project, and Trump’s decision to make him his running mate made one of its key architects, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, very happy.

The move will likely do little to halt Democratic attacks against Project 2025, particularly as those behind it say that their efforts will continue. It’s one of the many weird things that Democrats are successfully tying to the GOP, who are having a tough time convincing voters that any of their policies are normal.