“Couch F***er!”: JD Vance Booed While Hyping Up Trump’s D.C. Takeover

Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had to hear just how much Washington, D.C., hates them as they attempted a friendly photo op with Donald Trump’s federal forces Wednesday.

As Vance, Hegseth, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller walked through Washington’s Union Station, surrounded by a gaggle of photographers and guards, it was immediately clear that they were unwelcome there.

“Oh look, it’s couch-fucker!” one person shouted in a video shared to X by HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney. “You gonna fuck a couch, buddy?”

The shouting built to a crescendo, and it became difficult to make out the jeers of individual onlookers. But one sentiment was clear: “Go fuck a couch, JD Vance!” the first heckler shouted.

The Team Trump trio had arrived to deliver burgers (bought at the Shake Shack in Union Station) to National Guardsmen hanging around the train station, well within the sights of their own photographers. Six red-led states have mobilized roughly 1,200 additional troops to join the 800 already unleashed on Washington’s streets, tasked with stopping crime—the rate of which was already down.

The group took a few questions from the press, shouting their answers over the chants of dissidents. Miller tried to dismiss the demonstrators as “elderly white hippies.”

Vance strained to hear a question over the sounds of people in the train station. The question was: “Polls show that a majority of D.C. residents don’t support the guard here. So what’s your message to the majority of D.C. residents?”

“I’m highly skeptical that a majority of D.C. residents don’t want their city to be—to have better public safety and more reasonable safety standards within Washington, D.C.,” Vance said over the shouting. “I don’t know what poll you’re talking about, maybe the same poll that said that Kamala Harris would win the popular vote by 10 points.”

Vance then ended the question session, clearly irritated.

In fact, a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 65 percent of D.C. residents did not think that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard would make the city safer.

As Vance glad-handed National Guard troops, chants of “Free D.C.” could be heard in the background.

Another video shared by HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic showed the trio departing the station while deafening boos echoed off the high ceilings, the large hall bristling with contempt.

“Boo! Get out of here,” cried one onlooker.

It seems that the residents of D.C. have spoken—and they want Trump’s cronies gone.

Fewer and fewer Americans are choosing to be Democrats.

With just over a year until midterms, one of America’s two main parties is hemorrhaging voters, losing registered voters in all 30 states that track registration by political party. The change has been observed in blue, red, and swing states alike.

In total, some 2.1 million voters ditched the Democrats in favor of alternative politics between 2020 and 2024, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The drop has resulted in more registered independents, but it has also become a boon for the GOP, which gained 2.4 million new voters over the same period.

Last year marked the first time since 2018 that more Americans checked “Republican” on their voter registration forms than “Democrat.” The downward trend has sparked serious concern among Democratic strategists, who have identified it as a “hidden-in-plain-sight crisis” that needs a solution before the next presidential election.

“I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but there seems to be no end to this,” Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, told the Times. “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year.”

The most contentious battleground states have also experienced the liberal erosion. Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania all saw support peel away from Democrats over the last four years.

“In North Carolina, Republicans erased roughly 95 percent of the registration advantage that Democrats held in the fall of 2020, according to state records as of this summer,” reported the Times. “In Nevada, Democrats suffered the steepest percentage-point plunge of any state but West Virginia between 2020 and 2024.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are working overtime during Trump 2.0 to minimize future turnout at the voting booth. Since Inauguration Day, the administration has tried and failed to force Americans to show proof of citizenship at the voting booth and has attempted to take away the option of mail-in ballots.

Donald Trump and his allies have also made a target of voting software designed to identify potential voter fraud, advanced a Homeland Security agenda that has made immigrants fearful to legitimately participate in the American electorate, and generally undermined trust and confidence in the country’s process to elect its leaders.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night confused Armenia with another, somewhat similar-sounding nation, leading him to mistakenly claim he’d brokered peace between Azerbaijan and Albania.

The gaffe, which occurred while he was calling in to conservative commentator Mark Levin’s eponymous radio show, is only his latest geographical flub.

The president raved on air about his peacemaking efforts, repeating his false claim about having ended six wars during his second term.

“It’s, you know, a lot of amazing, amazing things,” Trump said, before attempting to mention his recently arranged Azerbaijan-Armenia peace declaration, which moved the countries toward peace—but did not fully end their 37-year-long conflict.

“You saw the Azerbaijan. That was a big one going on for 34, 35 years with, uh, Albania. Think of that,” the president said.

Not only did Trump incorrectly call Armenia “Albania,” but he also hesitated uncertainly while stating the name of Azerbaijan. He ultimately bungled the country’s pronunciation (“the Aber … baijan,” he said), so much so that The Mark Levin Show’s transcript of the episode, as of this writing, has him as saying “Arab or Bhaijaan.”

In a recent Fox News appearance, Trump puzzlingly added an extra seventh war to his already misleading list of six accomplished peace deals. Perhaps the mysterious seventh was this fictional conflict between Armenia and Albania.

President Donald Trump showed off “Trump 2028” hats and other merchandise to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders—right after an extremely sobering discussion about ending the death and destruction of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

According to photos, he was keen to draw their attention to various items, including a “Four More Years” hat, a “Gulf of America” hat, a “Trump was Right About Everything” hat, along with the classic “MAGA” and “USA” hats.

It’s moments like these that remind us that the president is a salesman in his heart of hearts.

The Trump Organization conglomerate has made billions through cryptocurrency and media ventures alongside the merchandise, which is typically only used to fund campaigns. But Trump has yet again figured out a way to game the system.

“In addition to the campaign merchandise sold by his campaign, which all candidates and all presidents do … the Trump Organization also has its own online store, and they sell all kinds of Trump merchandise that looks very much like its campaign merchandise, but this money flows to Trump himself—you know, $20, $40 for a pair of flip-flops, a pair of beer koozies, a baseball hat,” The New Yorker’s David Kirkpatrick told Democracy Now! on Wednesday.

“He’s making, you know, millions of dollars—you know, I forget what the exact number was, but 20 millions of dollars over the last few years—selling this kind of merchandise, which is arguably competing with his own campaign and diverting some of the money that his supporters might think is supporting the MAGA movement and his candidates to his own pocket,” Kirkpatrick continued.

The words on the hats are as alarming as the open corruption they represent. “Trump 2028” has become a commonplace slogan on the right, though the president is constitutionally barred from running again. But Trump himself has alluded to the possibility multiple times, as recently as this week.

“So you say, during the war you can’t have elections?” Trump said to Zelenskiy. “So let me just see: Three-and-a-half years from now, so you mean, if we [the United States] happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections … I wonder what the fake news would say about that.”

The Trump administration is apparently intent on lying about the impact of the president’s military occupation of D.C. on local restaurants.

While some data suggests the federal takeover may be scaring away diners, the Trump team keeps insisting that the very opposite is happening.

Appearing on Fox Business Wednesday morning, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum touted Trump’s crackdown, which is strongly opposed by most D.C. residents.

Burgum cited alleged decreases in carjackings and robberies—apparently, week-over-week percent decreases reported by D.C.’s police union, from which little can actually be concluded (in part because, as one conservative commentator observed, “robbery and property crime reports often lag the date of the incident by a week or more, making any short-term comparison like this liable to look more favorable than is true of the situation on the ground”).

Burgum also said restaurant reservations are “up 30 percent,” in a “dramatic change.” Here, the interior secretary was echoing Trump’s baseless claim earlier this week that restaurants are “busier than they’ve been in a long time.”

As D.C.’s local Fox station reports, restaurant attendance was down each day during the first week of Trump’s crackdown on the capital compared with the same week last year. The most significant plunge took place last Wednesday, when reservation numbers fell by 31 percent.

Conveniently overlooking these facts, Burgum seemingly narrowed in on data from Monday, which saw a 29 percent year-over-year increase in reservations made via the online service OpenTable.

However, this increase took place on the first day of the city’s summer Restaurant Week, during which local eateries offer promotional deals. Restaurant Week 2024 took place a week earlier, also potentially affecting last week’s numbers.

Reservation data aside, The Washington Post reports that Trump’s actions in D.C. have sent restaurant owners reeling.

One said that “reservations are low, low, low,” and, “The city is dead.”

Another, who said this month is on track to be the slowest August in his restaurant’s seven-year history (peak pandemic years included), told the Post that “seeing law enforcement—armored and plainclothed—in the neighborhood, casing our building and looking into our windows, definitely put guests and staff on edge.”

Donald Trump’s energy policy is already raising prices for consumers—and his administration is desperate for someone to blame. 

“Any State that has built and relied on WINDMILLS and SOLAR for power are seeing RECORD BREAKING INCREASES IN ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY COSTS,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY! We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!! MAGA.”

But clearly, the days of stupidity are far from over. A new report from Climate Power found that energy price increases spurred by Trump’s behemoth budget bill are already beginning to take root, The Guardian reported Tuesday.  

Using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Climate Power found that household gas prices had skyrocketed 56 percent from January to May 2025. 

The group also found that the average price of household energy had increased by roughly 10 percent during the same period, from 15.95 cents per kWh to 17.47 cents per kWh. Electricity prices were six percent higher in May than the same month the previous year. 

Climate Power senior adviser Jesse Lee accused Republicans of inflicting a “massive utility bill hike” on their constituents. “This is nothing short of a betrayal of their own voters. Families are losing jobs while their bills climb, all because Republicans would rather protect their donors than lower costs,” Lee told The Guardian.

Energy Innovation, a climate think tank, published a report in July that estimated Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” which repealed tax credits for solar and wind energy installed under the Biden administration, might raise wholesale electricity prices by 74 percent by 2035. Shortly after the law passed, Trump issued an executive order to ensure an end to “market distorting subsidies” for green energy projects.

In an interview for Politico, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright preempted the Trump administration getting blamed for the rising energy prices, and blamed Democrats for the cost increases. “The momentum of the Obama-Biden policies, for sure that destruction is going to continue in the coming years,” Wright told Politico. “That momentum is pushing prices up right now. And who’s going to get blamed for it? We’re going to get blamed because we’re in office.”

In response to The Guardian’s report, Department of Energy spokesperson Ben Dietderich said: “While radical activist groups might still be trying to peddle nonsense, the American people elected President Trump to restore commonsense energy policies and that is exactly what we are doing.”

“Other than higher energy prices and a less reliable grid more prone to blackouts, there is very little to show for the previous administration’s reckless green new scam spending that cost hundreds of billions of dollars,” he added. 

Dietderich also claimed that in 2024, the U.S. got only three3 percent of its energy from renewable sources. But a special report from global energy think tank Ember found that wind and solar energy accounted for a record 17 percent of electricity in the U.S. in 2024, overtaking coal for the first time, which only accounted for 15 percent. In 2023, the U.S. got 21.4 percent of its energy from renewable sources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

A new poll from The Washington Post shows that Washington, D.C., residents are overwhelmingly against the deployment of federal agents and national guardsmen in their streets.

The Post’s random sampling of 604 adult D.C. residents showed that 79 percent of them either somewhat opposed or strongly opposed, “Trump ordering the federal government to take control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and ordering the National Guard and FBI to patrol D.C.”

When asked, “How much, if at all, do you think the D.C. police should help the federal government deport undocumented immigrants who live in D.C.?” almost 60 percent of respondents replied, “Not at all,” and over half thought Mayor Muriel Bowser should do more to oppose the president.

Nearly 80 percent of respondents stated that they feel “very safe” or “somewhat safe” in their communities, up two percent from this May. The percentage of respondents who said that crime was an “extremely/very serious” issue in the District also fell significantly, from 50 percent to 31 percent. About 40 percent of August respondents stated that crime was a “moderately serious” issue.

The poll also shows that support for D.C. statehood is at its highest since 1995.

While these numbers give us insight into what just a portion of the city’s more than 700,000 residents are thinking, it’s clear that President Trump’s federal takeover has not had the desired effect.

It turns out that having masked Homeland Security Investigations, FBI, and other agents setting up checkpoints, harassing people for smoking weed, and pulling delivery drivers off of their scooters mid-route does not actually make D.C. residents feel safer.

“Trump’s overheated rhetoric about D.C. crime has evoked strong feelings among many residents offended by such characterizations of their city,” Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, told the Post. “A federalized takeover of any aspect of a city’s operations will naturally create a backlash, and that is clearly happening here,” he said.

Republican lawmakers are apparently consorting with the dead in their search for a justifiable reason to nix mail-in ballots.

Speaking with Fox Business Tuesday, Representative Jeff Van Drew claimed that he had spoken with “large numbers” of deceased people who had received the voter ballots.

“There were multiple mail-in ballots sent to the same person. Sometimes people would have multiple ballots sent to different addresses,” Van Drew said.

“Other times, people who are passed away—these are real people I spoke to, large numbers of them, and it’s indicative of what happened around the country,” the New Jersey lawmaker claimed.

Since he lost the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his allies have obsessed over contrived claims of voter fraud—a statistical nonissue in U.S. elections. For instance, a statewide audit out of Georgia, the epicenter of Trump’s baseless theory, revealed in September that just 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million residents existed on the state’s voter roll, just 0.00024 percent of the state’s voting population. Out of those 20, only nine participated in elections years ago, before ID was required as a part of the voter verification process. The other 11 individuals were registered but never actually voted, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Critics argue that restrictions on the front end of the electoral process—such as one-day voting and requiring day-of voter ID, which Trump has tried but failed to implement—would minimize voter turnout and limit American democracy’s ability to represent its constituents. This would especially be true in high-density areas like the nation’s biggest cities, where those stipulations would significantly drain resources (i.e., the number of volunteers required) and require more time to process, potentially leading to more delays, which Republicans could weaponize to further restrict voter access.

The MAGA party’s continued focus on the nativist nonissue belies the fact that it is, of course, already illegal and impossible for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections.

Attacking mail-in voting has not proved popular for Republican lawmakers, however. A heated exchange over the tool at a Casper, Wyoming, town hall Monday resulted in an irate crowd practically screaming at Representative Harriet Hageman, who claimed that mail-in ballots are not “foundational tools” of democratic elections.

President Donald Trump is notoriously incapable of taking even petty criticisms in stride. The White House’s latest spat with the White Stripes’ Jack White does little to change that perception.

On Tuesday, White posted a photo on Instagram of President Trump sitting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the Oval Office. Panning the president’s dictator-chic design choices, White wrote in his caption that the White House is “now a vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy, professional wrestler’s dressing room. Can’t wait for the UFC match on the front lawn too.”

White continued, writing, “Look at his disgusting taste, would you even buy a used car from this conman, let alone give him the nuclear codes? A gold plated trump bible would look perfect up on that mantle with a pair of trump shoes on either side wouldn’t it? What an embarrassment to American history.”

The musician also praised Zelenskiy. “Also pictured in this photograph, a REAL leader of a nation in a black suit,” wrote White, who has called Trump an “obvious fascist” and filed (but subsequently dropped) a lawsuit against his 2024 campaign for unauthorized use of the song “Seven Nation Army.”

In a statement sent to several media outlets, Steven Cheung, the famously hot-tempered Trump senior staffer, railed against White for his post.

“Jack White is a washed up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” wrote Cheung. “It’s apparent he’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House.’”

But if White’s post reveals that he has “ample time” on his hands, can’t the same be said about the White House for its reply?

This isn’t the first time Trump’s communications staff has deepened the impression of the president as thin-skinned. When the Comedy Central cartoon South Park featured a withering portrayal of Trump, the White House then too put together a statement defending the president’s honor. “This show,” it said, “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”

Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro once bragged about helping out President Donald Trump and the Republican Party as a Fox News host, according to newly unredacted court documents in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

The electronic voting machine company sued Fox in 2021 over the network’s coverage of the 2020 election. Fox News helped perpetuate the conspiracy that Smartmatic’s voting machines helped rig the election against Trump. The lawsuit is ongoing, and Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion.

Fox settled a similar lawsuit with voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems in April 2023 for $787.5 million.

The 468-page filing made public Tuesday included private conversations between the conservative network’s hosts, showing just how far Pirro and her colleagues were willing to go to push Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

Here are the five craziest messages:

1. Pirro Boasted About Doing Trump’s Dirty Work

Pirro messaged then–Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel voicing her support for Trump and the party. “I’m the Number 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party,” she wrote. Smartmatic claims that Pirro hoped to keep Trump’s favor in order to secure a presidential pardon for her ex-husband Albert Pirro, who’d been convicted of tax evasion and conspiracy. Albert Pirro was the last person Trump pardoned in his first term.

2. Pirro Cheered on Sidney Powell

Smartmatic’s suit alleged that Pirro served as a conduit to Trump’s associates, such as Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell—and the texts don’t lie. “It’s Jeanine P. Got a former CIA chief of station who knows [about] development of Dominion,” Pirro wrote, referring to Dominion Voting Systems, which had explicitly identified Pirro as a font of misinformation during its lawsuit. “Keep fighting,” she urged.

But Pirro’s producer Jerry Andrews warned her to stay away from claims of voter fraud. “You should be very careful with this stuff and protect yourself given the ongoing calls for evidence that has not materialized,” he said. Pirro later admitted as much during her deposition, saying that the election was “fair and free” and that Joe Biden had been “legitimately elected,” according to Smartmatic’s filing.

3. Bartiromo Asked Sidney Powell to “Please Please” Overturn the Election Results

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo also urged Powell to keep up the good work attempting to overturn Georgia’s election results. “Sidney we must keep you out there,” Bartiromo wrote via Signal.

“Dobbs is considered very opinionated. I am news,” she said, referring to the late Fox News host Lou Dobbs.

“I am very worried,” she added. “Please please overturn this. Bring the evidence. I know you can.”

Bartiromo was the first person to interview Powell, a few days after the election. In 2023, Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges connected with her efforts to interfere with Georgia’s election.

4. Baier Called the Claims a Load of “Crap”

Fox News anchor Bret Baier was so concerned about Bartiromo’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud that he warned Fox News executive Jay Wallace that they needed to verify her shoddy reporting. “None of that is true as far as we can tell,” Baier wrote, according to the filing. “We need to fact-check this crap.”

5. Gutfeld Fantasized About Boosting Ratings

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, who has a penchant for spouting racist and antisemitic drivel, messaged his colleague Jesse Watters in December 2020 about how leaning into dubious claims of election fraud could prove to be lucrative. “Think about how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL,” Gutfeld wrote, according to the filing.

He later testified that he’d seen “no evidence that Smartmatic Technology switched votes in the 2020 Election in the United States.”