JD Vance Says He’s OK With Bringing About the End Times

Vice President JD Vance isn’t sure if we’re living in the “end times,” but he’s not afraid to bring them about, either.

In a sit-down interview with 22-year-old evangelist podcaster Bryce Crawford, Vance said that he’s “OK” if his work on earth brings about a biblical doomsday event.

“Do I think we are in the end times? I don’t know,” Vance said in the interview released Monday, noting that it would be bad for him spiritually if he were to spend too much time thinking about that query. “While I’m fascinated by it, I think that focusing on it too much can be very bad.

“I think there are things about the world that make feel like not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us,” Vance added.

In another portion of the interview, Vance claimed he’s focused on “doing as much of God’s work as possible,” shrugging that “if that leads to the end times, OK.”

The Christian end times refer to the religion’s interpretations of the final days of humanity. That’s detailed in the Bible as a period involving widespread turmoil and deception (such as wars, earthquakes, and a false prophet), a seven-year stretch of unprecedented hardship known as the Great Tribulation that will end in Armageddon, the emergence of the Antichrist and a cadre of their followers who reject Christ’s teachings, and a final judgment by God.

Vance did not speculate as to who he believed the Antichrist could be.

Ultimately, Vance gave Crawford more than an hour of his time, while the White House aggravates long-standing Western alliances, embraces Russia, wages war on Iran, undermines voting rights, and further divides the American public—among other sordid realities.

Crawford founded the ministry Jesus in the Street and has attracted more than a million YouTube followers via clickbait videos such as “Preaching the Gospel in the Hood” and “Gay Man Encounters Jesus.” Last week, Crawford joined comedian Howie Mandel’s podcast to argue that “homosexuality isn’t love” and that “truth trumps a feeling” when it comes to transgender identities.

Florida GOP House nominee Mike Beltran wiped multiple mentions of President Trump from his campaign website ahead of the November midterm elections—a telltale sign of a toxic president.

According to the Washington Examiner, Beltran’s website used to proclaim that he “stood with President Trump every step of the way.”

“He is one of only seven Republican legislators in the entire state of Florida who never endorsed Ron DeSantis for President, standing firm with Trump from the moment he came down the escalator in 2015. That wasn’t a political calculation. It was conviction,” the removed passage continued.

It certainly seems like Beltran is leaning into political calculation now, as his support for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is missing from his website along with the pro-Trump language.

Beltran’s campaign told the Examiner that the cuts had nothing to do with Trump, or his dismal 33 percent approval rating. There are still some mentions of Trump on the campaign site, mostly related to immigration, as well as a photo of Beltran and his family with Trump.

Beltran isn’t the only GOP nominee to distance himself from Trump after a primary victory. Ralph Alvarado, who was endorsed by Trump in May, has scrubbed the president’s name from his website, touting himself as “independent leadership for Kentucky.”

It seems like Republicans are seeing the writing on the wall and prioritizing their own optics over attaching themselves to Trump’s dirty lapels in the midterm election. Earlier this month, Trump-endorsed Republican candidates Amir Hassan of Michigan, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, and Mike Lindell of Minnesota all lost their primaries. Even still, Trump seems unfazed by his poor midterm performance outlook.

“There’s a theory that I get the vote,” Trump said to Sean Hannity last week. “You know, I see it all the time. ‘When Trump’s on the ballot, they win. When he’s not on the ballot, the people don’t go to vote.’ And I’m asking the people through your brilliant show, number one show, I’m asking the people to get out and vote, pretend I’m on the ballot.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken it upon himself to insult Canadian teenagers and their instructors. Canada is laughing in his face.

On Monday night, Hegseth reposted an image from Vernon Cadet Training Center in British Columbia of an officer in the Cadet Instructors Cadre presenting a young cadet with a medal at the end of a summer cadet training session. The defense secretary captioned the image with a Canadian flag emoji and, in parentheses, “(this is real).”

The Canadian Cadet Program is a federally funded youth development program for Canadians between the ages of 12 and 18 focused on leadership, citizenship, and community service. They are not members of the military.

Hegseth’s post was immediately condemned online, as commenters accused the secretary of body-shaming the instructor and young cadet. Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Missouri’s 2nd district, wrote, “You’re mocking kids. This is a junior cadet program. What a pathetic small man you are.” Amy Coplan, a California State University Fullerton philosophy professor, added, “Is bullying Canadian teenagers more important than attending to our ever-deteriorating situation in Iran?”

Some responses to Hegseth’s post used the defense secretary’s own style against him, writing “(this is real)” with the American flag alongside images of President Trump with Jeffery Epstein and Hegseth himself soaked in champagne.

Perhaps the greatest insult came from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney himself, who said Tuesday that the post was “beneath their office.”

“When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having the discussions, we can have those discussions,” Carney told reporters. “It’s not constructive, but that’s their democracy.”

Despite the defense secretary’s blatant body-shaming, the Pentagon stands by his every word. “The X post speaks for itself,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Jacob Bliss said.

The whole exchange marks yet another escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing feud with Canada, during which Trump has levied a trade war against our northern neighbors, thrown insults across the border, posted ridiculous memes, and changed the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”

Donald Trump has decided to take another sledgehammer to the White House—this time on the taxpayer’s dime.

The General Services Administration, under the White House’s guidance, has awarded government contracts to renovate the two-lane Harry S. Truman Bowling Alley in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Politico reported Monday. On July 28, the GSA awarded nearly $253,000 to Charles Mann Enterprises to do some lighting work in the exclusive recreational spot. Weeks later, on August 18, the agency awarded the contractor another $8,800 for escort services to shuttle workers in and out of sensitive government areas.

Somehow, the development has not rattled budget-conscious Republicans in the slightest, despite the party’s previous aversion to the site’s renovation.

The last major renovation project proposed for the bowling alley was announced under President Barack Obama in 2014. At the time, the GSA told Time magazine that the lanes needed a rebuild as they were “irreparable.”

Hours after the article’s publication, the proposed renovation turned into a Washington brouhaha. Republican opposition to the remodel forced the GSA to cancel the project, and the Republican-controlled House went so far as to adopt an amendment prohibiting funding from being used to renovate the bowling alley.

Former Representative Pat Meehan called the renovation a “want,” not a “need.” Former Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus made a similar mockery of the proposed rebuild on Twitter, publishing a list of crossed-out governmental funding needs such as the economy and “securing the border.”

“Repair WH Bowling Alley✓,” Priebus wrote at the time.

But Republicans in Trump’s second term are comparatively nonplussed by the MAGA leader’s inordinate and unnecessary spending. Beyond the bowling alley job, Trump has razed the White House East Wing, started construction on a $600 million ballroom (the price of which keeps growing), gutted the Lincoln bathroom, transformed the Palm Room from a lush green foyer into a sterile lobby, and mowed down Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s famous Rose Garden in order to pave “paradise.”

The administration has also spent more than $16 million on an unsuccessful and rushed renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, announced plans for a 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery (estimated at more than $100 million), indiscriminately axed trees in the Washington area, and destroyed the Kennedy Center facade. It is also reportedly planning to destroy some 13 historic buildings on the grounds of former psychiatric hospital St. Elizabeths in order to expand facilities for the Department of Homeland Security.

Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant, stepped into traffic in Springfield, Ohio, Monday and was killed. His family believes it was a suicide after he lost his Temporary Protected Status.

Ohio State Highway Patrol officials reported that Bel had pulled his car over on the right shoulder of I-70 Monday morning and then walked directly into oncoming traffic. He was struck by a large tractor-trailer and died from his injuries at the scene.

Bel had reportedly been distraught after he, like dozens of Haitians in Springfield, was called to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office to be fitted with an ankle monitor following the end of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Springfield is home to a Haitian community of about 15,000, and a June Supreme Court decision permitted the Trump administration to cancel their TPS protections, despite the ongoing violence and insecurity in Haiti. Without TPS, Haitian residents have been ordered to wear ankle monitors and travel no further than 75 miles from their homes.

“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone,” Bel wrote on Instagram on July 30. “Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.”

Bel was a recent honors high school graduate and a proud cadet in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He had just started classes as a freshman at Wright State University, where he wanted to study medicine and play soccer.

After being fitted with the ankle monitor, he was reportedly not given a JROTC uniform and could no longer comfortably play soccer.

“In his last days, I did not recognize him as he was such an energetic kid who loves life, friends and family, and education,” the 20-year-old’s father, Pierre Ronal Bel, told The Haitian Times. “It was his first week of classes, but he didn’t feel like he was learning because he was traumatized, so it’s because of ICE’s ankle monitor.… He would wear long pants or jeans whenever he went out so people wouldn’t make fun of him or look at him differently.”

“He felt like he was treated like an animal,” the grieving father added in a statement to The Washington Post.

Bel’s death has shocked and traumatized the Haitian community in Springfield and beyond. This is the same Haitian enclave that President Trump accused of eating cats and dogs on the campaign trail in 2024, and the community has been living in terror ever since the administration canceled TPS. Bel was scheduled for an asylum hearing in October, and reportedly did not want to return to Haiti due to the violence that caused his parents to flee in 2021.

“I’m supposed to be forgiving,” the Bel family’s pastor in Springfield, Carl Ruby, told the Post. “But right now as I sit with a broken family, I’m crying out to God for righteous judgment in those who made this happen.”