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JD Vance Flails When Reminded of Trump’s Vow to Hurt Dems in Shutdown

2 14
thursday

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday refused to explain President Trump’s seeming threat that federal firings during the government shutdown would be based on political affiliation.

A day earlier, CBS’s Weijia Jiang had asked the president why he’d said government employees would have to be let go during a shutdown, given the massive reductions to the federal workforce enacted earlier in the year by his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.”

In response, the president said many people will be laid off, and “they’re going to be Democrats,” leading Jiang on Wednesday—the first day of the shutdown—to ask Vance whether terminations would be ideologically motivated.

“Has the administration asked agencies to target federal workers who they believe to be Democrats in these reductions of forces?” Jiang asked.

Vance denied that the administration is “targeting federal agencies based on politics,” and said federal workers would be fired only if the shutdown “drags on” long enough.

“So what did he mean by, ‘They are going to be Democrats’?” Jiang asked, quoting Trump. Vance, taking the next question, did not answer.

Reporter: Yesterday, President Trump said as a result of the shutdown, "We will be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected," and "They are going to be Democrats."

Vance: We are not targeting federal agencies based on politics

Reporter: But he said "They… pic.twitter.com/N0jmiwyNg7

Whether or not possible layoffs will be explicitly politicized, the Trump administration has already used the shutdown as a cudgel against Democrats.

On Wednesday, White House budget director Russell Vought said he was freezing $18 billion earmarked for infrastructure projects in New York—the state represented by both of the top-ranking Democrats in Congress. Shortly after, Vought announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in climate projects across 16 states, each of which just happen to be blue states that did not vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

In doing so, the budget director was simply following through on Trump’s threat to punish Democrats during the shutdown by “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Vice President JD Vance struggled to defend Donald Trump’s racist AI slop about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries by saying he thought it was “funny.”

The president posted videos on Truth Social both Monday and Tuesday that showed Jeffries wearing a sombrero, with an exaggerated handlebar mustache, while mariachi music played in the background—a stunt the New York Democrat called “racist.”

Speaking at a White House press briefing Wednesday, Vance was asked how he squared the president’s pathetic posting with claims that the Trump administration had attempted to engage in “good faith” negotiations with Democratic leaders.

“Oh, I think it’s funny! The president’s joking and we’re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while poking a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities [in] some of the Democrats’ positions. And even poking some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats themselves,” Vance said.

“I mean I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now: I make this solemn promise to you, that if you help us reopen the government the sombrero memes will stop. And I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that,” he continued.

Shortly after, Vance circled back to “the sombrero thing,” saying, “Hakeem Jeffries said it was racist. And I know that he said that, and I honestly don’t even honestly know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having, like, a sombrero meme?”

Jeffries is African American, and the first Black man to lead a major party in either chamber of the U.S. Congress. And Jeffries isn’t the only Black politician to be targeted with the racist sombrero meme: The Trump War Room X account also posted an AI-generated photo of Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, who is also not Mexican. But you don’t need to be of a specific ethnicity to recognize that using stereotypes from that ethnicity’s culture to imply someone is weak or stupid is, inherently, racist.

The set-dressing was in reference to Republicans’ claims that Democrats shut down the government because they want to extend health care benefits to undocumented immigrants. In fact, Democrats shut down the government because they want Americans to keep theirs.

Vance is no stranger to defending racist remarks. On the campaign trail, he elevated the false conspiracy that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their white neighbors’ pets.

In February, he argued that a DOGE employee should be reinstated after he quit over racist comments online. “I obviously disagree with some of [Marko] Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance wrote on X. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back.”

Meanwhile, Vance has cheered on a doxing campaign for people making jokes about the death of right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk.

Vance has often used offensive gestures at comedy to appeal to the culture warriors in Trump’s base. There are those of us who still remember his weak attempt to rib cancel culture over his choice of Diet Mountain Dew, or his sexist “childless cat lady” comment. Recently, Vance has attempted to make light of extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans. Trump’s caricatures of Jeffries are blatantly racist, and exactly the kind of shitposting his troll-laden base feeds on.

The Trump administration is yanking green energy and infrastructure funding away from blue states on day one of the Republican-led government shutdown. 

“Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being........

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