Trump Has Tucker Carlson to Blame for the Abject Disaster of Selecting JD Vance as His Running Mate
Colby HallJul 26th, 2024, 11:50 am
The Testicle Tanner Tucker strikes again.
We know that both Tucker and Vance hate Trump and that makes is sweeter.
 Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
By any objective measure, JD Vance has had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week following former President Donald Trump’s selection of him as his running mate.
A spate of embarrassingly misogynistic clips have emerged in the past few days, raising serious questions about Team Trump’s lax vetting process. But who is most to blame for this disaster? None other than former Fox News host turned podcast host and part-time Trump advisor Tucker Carlson.
How has the first week on the campaign trail been for the best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy, who’s served less than two years in public office as a US Senator? Where to begin…
In the days leading up to Trump’s Apprentice-style last-minute VP selection process, news emerged that Vance once referred to his now-running mate as “American Hitler.” In an appearance on MSNBC in 2016, he also took the side of Jessica Leeds, who alleged she was a victim of sexual assault by Trump. But oddly, that was only the best part of the news to emerge, as it only pertained to the former president.
In the past few days, a series of profoundly misogynistic and anti-democratic comments have emerged, no doubt painting Vance in the most possibly negative light in the eyes of suburban women, a key voting constituency that could determine the 2024 election.
There was his now-infamous “childless cat lady” comment during a 2021 appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance said.
This was a dig designed to blast Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and earned an immediate rebuke from a broad spectrum of critics, perhaps most notably from the normally apolitical movie star Jennifer Anniston.
On Thursday, the Harris campaign resurfaced a video from September 2021 of Vance at the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Vance argued that American citizens who don’t have children should have less power in a democratic republic than those with children. Vance said:
When you go to the polls in this country, as a parent, you should have more power. You should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality. If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice. Now people will say, and I’m sure The Atlantic and the Washington Post and all the usual suspects will criticize me about this in the coming days. Well, doesn’t this mean that non-parents don’t have as much of a voice as parents? Doesn’t this mean that parents get a bigger say in how our democracy functions? Yes, absolutely.
( Tell that to George Washington, who never had children of his own. )
The steady stream of embarrassing clips was enough to elicit commentary from proud conservative Meghan McCain. “I have been trying to warn every conservative man I know – these JD comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump-supporting friends,” she declared in a post on X.
It’s gotten so bad that during a Thursday morning phone interview with Fox & Friends, Steve Doocy had the temerity to ask Trump if he is still “100% standing by JD Vance,” to which Trump revealed, at least for now, no plans to make a change.
Even conservative firebrand and OutKick host Tomi Lahren posted on social media Friday morning: “I like JD Vance, but I’m not sure the calculation as VP pick checks out. Going to be three months of replaying his past comments. It’s not gonna be easy to get around some of these. Sorry, just the truth.”
When you’ve lost Tomi Lahren…and Jennifer Anniston and Meghan McCain and Anthony Scarmucci, and a raft of others…maybe it’s time to admit it was a bad pick. And this is where we pivot back to Tucker Carlson.
Carlson may no longer have a show on Fox News, but his influence on a Republican Party refashioned in the image of Donald Trump is still remarkably significant. This was on full display last Thursday as he was given the prime 8 p.m. speaking spot before Trump’s nomination acceptance speech. Carlson was also a consistent presence throughout the RNC, and he could be seen yukking it up in Trump’s friend and family box.
Carlson is also the most influential figure in Trump’s orbit who vociferously pushed for Vance to get the VP pick. Yes, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Jr also made the case, but its hard to argue anyone in that world has more political juice than the host of the top-rated conservative podcast.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported that when Carlson learned that Trump was wavering on selecting Vance, he called the former president to lobby personally on the Ohio Senator’s behalf. Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin also reported that Trump listened to Carlson. Axios reported the same, as did New Republic, The Hill, and Tim Alberta, to name but a few. One can only guess the source of the scoops, but Carlson himself is a notorious media gossip himself.
Coincidentally, the most damaging clip to Vance came from an appearance on Carlson’s now-defunct Fox News show, which is certain to be a treasure trove of more misogynistic comments given Tucker Carlson’s long-standing proclivity of blaming societal woes on childless women (among other things.)
None of this is good news for a Trump campaign that was showing great triumphalism just a week ago and is now suggesting it will not participate in a debate with presumptive nominee Kamala Harris. But I don’t think any of the Vance comments — however controversial they might be — will lead to Trump changing running mates.
Now, Trump might eventually pick another vice presidential candidate as he’s a world-class flouter of decorum, but if he did, it would be for an entirely different reason. And as Scaramucci said on CNN Thursday night, if there is one thing Trump detests, it is public figures who are dull. D-U-Double L. Of all the candidates currently out there, JD Vance may be the dullest.
And in the eyes of the carnival barker turned would-be second-term president? There is no greater political sin than being boring. Watch your back, JD.
Trump Can Only Blame Tucker Carlson for JD Vance Disaster (mediaite.com) |
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