The Insufferable Liar, JD Vance

Sunday’s talk show circuit revealed the Vice President is willing to lie shamelessly, but he’s just not very good at it

Screen capture from ABC News

When we think ahead to a time without Donald Trump—and that time will come—a natural question arises: “Who is his heir apparent?” Will MAGA survive the eventual passing of Dear Leader by affixing itself to a new rising demagogue?

The most obvious pick would be Vice President JD Vance, beloved by the broligarchy and ever eager to display his Trumpian bona fides. That effort was on full display over the weekend as his boss golfed and Vance went on the talk shows to sell whatever vision the GOP currently has for America.

But he didn’t fare so well. It turns out, Vance is a liar, just not a very capable one. Sure, he manages to speak untruths, and this weekend they poured out of him like shadows from a cursed box. But his delivery fell far short of gifted, calling into serious question whether he can actually gather up all the Cheeto crumbs to make a full meal of it.

Ron Filipkowski put it well in his roundup of the weekend’s politics for MeidasTouch:

Trump lies like a huckster televangelist—like he knows he’s trying to con you with obvious bs so he keeps checking to see if you are buying it and can’t believe his luck that so many are. Mike Johnson lies with a monotone smooth sliminess that reminds me of the character Kevin Spacey played in The Usual Suspects. But Vance tells preposterous lies with a tone of indignancy if you dare suggest that he might be full of shit.

Let’s walk through some of these preposterous examples of lying and assess how this pretender to the MAGA throne repeatedly demonstrated how truly full of it he is.

The layoffs are… the Democrats’ fault?

We’ve had government shutdowns before. Most federal workers get furloughed for the duration of the government’s closure, except for essential workers who still have to show up, even though most will not receive paychecks until the shutdown ends.

This year, Trump and the Office of Management and Budget, to the horror of many of their own party officials, announced plans to use the shutdown to lay off many federal workers permanently. There are myriad reasons why this is illegal, and the federal labor unions have already filed suit. But beyond that, the optics are terrible.

The solution was to send in JD Vance to somehow sell this bag of garbage to the public.

NBC’s Kristen Welker, who isn’t known for her hard-hitting questions, had no problem cornering the Vice President over this. She pointed out that no federal workers were laid off in the prior shutdown in 2019, which lasted 35 days.

“Why are these firings necessary?” Welker asked.

Vance responded that this was a question of priorities (which is true) but then posed the following question in response: “Who do we care about more, federal bureaucrats in D.C. or low income women getting the food benefits they deserve, our troops getting the payment they need, flood insurance across the Southeast in the midst of hurricane season…”

Welker interrupted. “Laying people off is a priority?” she asked, steering him back to her question.

“Kristen, if you would let me finish,” he said, not understanding how his non-answer was playing to the viewing public. “We have to lay off some federal workers in the midst of this shutdown to preserve the essential benefits for the American people that the government does provide.”

He continued, “We don’t want to be in this situation. We don’t want to be laying off federal workers. But the Democrats have shut down the government. They have forced us to choose between American citizens and federal bureaucrats.”

Vance asserts that the federal budget is a zero sum game, and that the only two choices are either laying off federal “bureaucrats” or cutting off critical social services and foregoing pay for our troops. Vance would have us believe he actually cares about the plight of low income women getting their food benefits, even though the budget he and his party passed devastates those very benefits. Americans by large margins disapprove of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” precisely because it cuts over a trillion dollars from Medicaid and food stamps for the most vulnerable, all so the GOP can extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the super wealthy. Vance says the only solution now is to eliminate even more federal spending and jobs.

Nothing is “making” Donald Trump and Russ Vought cut jobs. This is their way of creating maximum pain for Democrats, and they aren’t shy about say that. Trump has been publicly gleeful about hurting “Democrat Agencies” and even tied the plans directly to Vought and Project 2025, claiming in early October on Truth Social,

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut ... I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

“We’re looking at all options”

Welker also asked Vance whether President Trump was considering invoking the Insurrection Act. By way of background, Trump so far has used his authority under Title 10 to federalize and attempt to deploy National Guard troops to blue cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Portland. He has been met with resistance from governors Newsom, Pritzker and Kotek, who filed suit against him and won injunctions against the deployment.

That has led Trump to up the ante by musing publicly about invoking the Insurrection Act, a law from the early 1800s that permits the president to deploy the military to put down a declared rebellion or insurrection.

Here was their exchange:

WELKER: The administration has been seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act. That would give the president the power to direct federal troops to conduct law enforcement functions in the case of a national emergency. Is that the case? Are you seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act?

VANCE: Well, the president is looking at all of his options, right now he hasn’t felt he needed to. But we have to remember: Why are we talking about this, Kristen? Because crime has gotten out of control in our cities, because our ICE agents, the people who are enforcing our immigration laws, have faced a 1,000 percent increase in violent attacks against them. We have people right now who are going out there, who are doing the job the president asked them to do, who are enforcing our immigration laws. They’re being assaulted, they’re being beaten, they’re being shot at.

The problem here is not the Insurrection Act or whether we actually invoke it or not. The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far left lunatics, have made it okay to tee-off on American law enforcement. We cannot accept that in the United States of America. We want everybody, black or white, rich or poor, to be safe in the United States of America, but to do that have to empower our law enforcement to keep us safe—

WELKER: Mr. Vice President—

VANCE: —that’s what we’re talking about doing.

WELKER: Couple of points here. First of all, an Illinois judge said that state and local authorities have been able to handle protests, that ICE and other federal agencies have been able to continue to do their work. Crime is down in both Chicago and Portland. But is there a “rebellion” here? That’s what would trigger an Insurrection Act. Is it imminent?

VANCE: Crime is down in Chicago and Portland often because they are so overwhelmed at the local level they are not even keeping the statistics properly. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had an ICE office get shot at by a far-left assassin who was trying to kill our law enforcement officers. He fortunately didn’t kill law enforcement officers; he did kill some other innocent people in the process. We cannot allow the far left in this country to tee-off on our law enforcement officers. We’ve got to do something about it. And that’s all the president’s talking about.

There’s a lot here, but let’s start with his lies and distortions around violence against ICE officers.

DHS has made several public assertions that protestors have assaulted its agents, but in court it has repeatedly dropped the charges and declined to pursue cases for lack of evidence—or because grand juries found no probable cause to indict. This occurred in several recent examples:

• A Chicago area journalist and video editor for WGN Television, Debbie Brockman, was forced to the ground and hauled away by ICE agents who claimed she had assaulted them. She was later released without charges.

• A Chicago couple arrested outside the Broadview ICE facility were released without charges after an Illinois grand jury found no probable cause to indict them.

• The Justice Department dropped all “civil unrest” charges against Alejandro Orellana, who participated in the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and handed out face shields to protestors after a California grand jury found no probable cause to indict.

As ABC News noted,

U.S. District Judge April Perry cited the rejection of some criminal charges by grand jurors as one of the factors casting “...significant doubt on DHS’ credibility and assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago.”

Moreover, Vance’s claim that assaults have risen “1,000 percent” is based on a 700 percent figure being tossed around earlier by the regime. But the “1,000 percent” number hides the fact that the actual numbers are very small.

DHS disclosed to Fox reporter Bill Melugin that there were 10 alleged assaults on ICE officers in the first half of 2024 versus 69 in the first half of 2025. That’s a 690 percent increase, but it’s only 59 alleged assaults. And as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council points out, it is unclear what the definition of an “assault” is. Is it simply people resisting being kidnapped and detained? Melnick notes that “despite DHS’s massive new enforcement presence in communities around the country, agents still face far fewer threats than beat cops.”

Vance, like Trump, doesn’t like what the actual facts about crime in places like Chicago and Portland are. So, following Trump’s lead, he attacks the credibility of the crime statistics themselves.

Let’s start with the fact that murders in Chicago are near historic lows.

Vance has no answer for why the trend is so much lower other than to say the numbers aren’t real.

Vance’s assertion that the local authorities are too overwhelmed to keep statistics is ludicrous. The Council on Criminal Justice, an independent and non-partisan group, publishes an annual crime report for major U.S. cities. It found,

Chicago’s overall crime rate in June 2025 (444.8 incidents per 100,000 residents) was lower than in June of the two years immediately prior to the COVID pandemic: 12% lower than in June 2018 (503.8 per 100,000) and 8% lower than in June 2019 (483.6 per 100,000). Violent crime also has declined, with all categories lower in the first six months of 2025 than during the same period in 2024.

The FBI also keeps crime statistics, so it’s not just a question of local recording of data. It found that the rate of violent crime in Chicago has been falling. As the BBC reported,

Last year, Chicago’s violent crime rate was down 11% on 2023 levels and roughly half what it was in the years leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On this measure, the city ranked near the bottom of US cities with populations larger than 500,000 (29th out of 37), according to BBC Verify analysis of FBI data.

Note also how Vance dodged Welker’s question about whether there is actually a “rebellion” underway in Chicago or Portland. He pivoted instead to false statements about crime levels before talking about the shooter who killed immigrant detainees. That incident took place at a facility in the Dallas, Texas region, but Trump and Vance haven’t demanded the National Guard to be deployed there. Rather, Gov. Abbott is working to send his state’s troops to Chicago where they aren’t even welcome.

Moreover, Vance made an unsupported statement about the political leanings of the alleged killer in Texas. No motive has yet been determined in that attack. In short, Vance, presumably on behalf of the White House, is attempting to justify invocation of the Insurrection Act in Chicago and Portland based on a killing in Texas by a person who has no known affiliation with any leftist groups.

Arresting political opponents

When George Stephanopoulos interviewed Vance on ABC’s This Week, he raised a very serious question concerning Trump’s threats to arrest Gov. JB Pritzker, whom Trump labeled a “criminal.” In his response, Vance implied that “failing to do his job” as governor is an actionable criminal offense:

STEPHANOPOULOS: I asked if you agree with President Trump that Governor Pritzker has committed a crime.

VANCE: Well, I think that Governor Pritzker has allowed a lot of people to be killed in the city of Chicago and elsewhere, George. I think that it’s disgraceful, and I think he absolutely should suffer some consequences for the fact that there are thousands of innocent Chicagoans who are dead because he failed to do his job.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s really a yes or no question. Do you believe he’s committed a crime?

VANCE: George, you’re gonna keep on asking this question, I’m gonna keep on telling you that Governor Pritzker has failed to do his job. He should suffer some consequences. Whether he’s violated [sic] a crime ultimately I would leave to the courts. But I certainly think that he has violated his fundamental oath of office. That seems criminal to me. I’d leave it to a judge and jury to decide whether he’s actually violated [sic] the crime.

If “violating his fundamental oath of office” was really a crime, most of the Republican Party would be charged by now. Vance was awkwardly trying and badly failing to sane-wash the words of Donald Trump, who has recently demonstrated he will use the Department of Justice to come after his political opponents. Vance was trapped because he couldn’t disagree with the President’s position or he’d be in trouble with his boss and with MAGA. But he couldn’t come up with any actual reason for his claim that Pritzker is a criminal, so he fell back on failing to stop crime, even though that isn’t a crime by any stretch and even though, as discussed above, crime is way down in Chicago.

You can watch Vance dissemble here:

The Homan squirm

The only subject in our politics that makes GOP mouthpieces nearly as uncomfortable as the Epstein files is the plight of Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan. You probably know by now that Homan was caught in 2024 accepting a paper bag containing $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents, allegedly in connection with promises to direct future contracts their way should he be appointed to a position within the Trump administration.

Stephanopoulos asked Vance about that incident, and once again Vance proved incapable of providing a straightforward and honest answer:

STEPHANOPOULOS: The White House border czar Tom Homan was recorded on an FBI surveillance tape in September 2024 accepting $50,000 in cash. Did he keep that money or give it back?

VANCE: George, you’ve covered this story ad nauseum. Tom Homan did not take a bribe. It’s a ridiculous smear, and the reason you guys are going after Tom Homan so aggressively is because he’s doing the job of enforcing the law. I think it’s really preposterous, I know Tom, I think that he’s a good man, he gets death threats, he gets attacked, he gets constantly threatened by people because he has the audacity to want to enforce the country’s immigration laws. I think it would be a much more interesting story about why is it that Tom Homan, who is simply enforcing the America’s immigration laws, is getting constantly harassed and threatened to the point of death threats. That’s a much more interesting question that I think journalists should focus on. We can agree to disagree on that question.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said he didn’t take a bribe. I’m not sure you answered the question. Are you saying that he did not accept the $50,000?

VANCE: George, this story has been covered ad nauseum. He did not take a bribe. Did he accept $50,000? I’m sure that in the course of Tom Homan’s life, he has been paid more than $50,000 for services. The question is, did he do something illegal, and there’s absolutely no evidence that Tom Homan—

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m asking a different question. I’m asking, did he accept the $50,000 that was caught on the surveillance tape. Did he accept that $50,000 or not?

VANCE: George, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did he accept $50,000 for what?

STEPHANOPOULOS: He was recorded on an audio [sic] tape in September of 2024—an FBI surveillance tape—accepting $50,000 in cash. Did he keep that money?

VANCE: Accepting $50,000 for doing what, George? I’m not even sure I understand the question. Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services? The FBI has not prosecuted him, I’ve never seen any evidence that he’s engaged in criminal wrongdoing, nobody has accused Tom of violating [sic] a crime, even the far-left media like yourself, so I’m actually not sure what the precise question is. Did he accept $50,000? Honestly, George, I don’t know the answer to that question. What I do know is that he didn’t violate [sic] a crime.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t—what was caught on the tape, you’re saying right now you don’t know whether or not he kept that money.

VANCE: I don’t know what tape you’re referring to, George. I saw media reports that Tom Homan accepted a bribe. There’s no evidence of that.

Vance then said Stephanopolous’s line of questioning was the reason “why fewer and fewer people watch your program, and why you’re losing credibility” before returning to his talking points about how “low income women can’t get food because the Democrats and Chuck Schumer have shut down the government.”

Vance is hiding behind the fact that Homan didn’t accept a “bribe” because, he appears to argue, only an actual government official can be “bribed,” and Homan was only making promises about directing future contracts toward the undercover agents. That’s also illegal by the way. It’s just technically not a “bribe” in Vance’s book.

The agents had decided to wait and see if Homan would follow through on those promises, but the investigation was dropped after Homan took office and Kash Patel took over the FBI, surprise surprise.

The exchange continued a bit more, with Vance accusing Stephanopoulos of insinuating criminal wrongdoing by Homan and of “going down some weird left-wing rabbit hole” over Homan and the $50,000.

At that point, Stephanopoulos said he was making no such insinuiation, restated the facts, noted that Vance did not answer the question, then cut him off and went to a commercial break.

Think about what Vance said for a moment. He would have us believe that Homan accepted a paper bag full of $50,000 for some reason other than a future bribe. Look at his response again: “Did he accept $50,000? I’m sure that in the course of Tom Homan’s life, he has been paid more than $50,000 for services.”

What services were those exactly? Did he perform them? Did he declare the cash on his taxes?

Vance couldn’t answer the question about whether Homan took the money because answering would expose him to this next logical line of questioning. But to suggest that Homan was aboveboard and just doing what normal people do by meeting government contractors in a parking lot and taking a paper bag full of cash from them is absurd. It reveals Vance for what he is: an apologist for criminals, and a rather bad one at that.

Vance’s sneering, insufferable way of telling obvious lies, and then acting offended when we don’t buy them, isn’t going to fly, just as it didn’t during the Vice Presidential debates.

Yes, Vance has the ability to lie. He just doesn’t have the range.