Other Than Inadvertantly Exposing Elon Musk As A Total Hypocrite, The Iran JD Vance Hack Was A Dud

Will The Debate Tuesday Be A Dud Too?

Still haven’t read the hacked Trump campaign’s JD Vance vetting document? No need, really. It's 271 pages— and mostly stuff we’ve already heard or read about the weirdo— so that's why there hasn't been much reporting on it. Although I had never seen the since-deleted tweet from 2016 in which Vance snarkily asked “what percentage of the American population has @RealDonaldTrump sexually assaulted?”

Still, the dossier also highlights some previously undisclosed business dealings and relationships, which suggest potential conflicts of interest and that his personal financial network may influence his policy stances. It mentions his ties to prominent figures in the venture capital world. The vetting team also seemed concerned about his ideological inconsistency. His shifting views— even beyond his heavily-reported past anti-Trump rhetoric— raised concerns that he might be unreliable as a political ally or deviate from GOP orthodoxy once elected, which is kind of ironic and even laughable coming from a Trump operation.

The Advocate seems to have gone over it and came up with a few things that hadn’t been widely discussed before— like Vance’s opposition to Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and his support of higher capital gains taxes plus higher taxes on people without children. “These stances,” wrote Christopher Wiggins, “along with his criticisms of corporate interests and his advocacy for labor union reforms, mark significant departures from traditional Republican economic policies, according to the dossier. The dossier notes that Vance has even questioned the emphasis on free-market principles, arguing instead for policies that prioritize the nuclear family. Additionally, the dossier outlines Vance’s opposition to some of Trump’s key initiatives, including the border wall and the repeal of Obamacare. Vance had been critical of Trump’s immigration policies, attributing the border crisis to business interests seeking cheap labor. On healthcare, Vance opposed Trump’s efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, expressing concern for those who might lose access to Medicaid and other healthcare services.”

Marc Caputo read through it for The Bulwark and didn’t come up with any smoking guns that are noteworthy. “[W]hat stands out,” he wrote, “is not what’s in the 271-page file, but what was left out. Vance’s infamous ‘childless cat ladies’ comment was not listed among the liabilities that the Trump campaign assessed about the then-prospective running mate. That comment from Vance— which was made, among other places, during a 2021 Fox interview with Tucker Carlson— ended up dogging both him and the Trump campaign in the weeks after he was selected, helping Kamala Harris’s campaign drag down his favorability ratings and define him negatively. Taylor Swift, among others, referenced the ‘childless cat lady’ dig when announcing her support for Harris… The exclusion suggests that Trump campaign researchers either missed Vance’s incendiary remarks or thought they were no big deal. The former, however, seems implausible as the document posted by Klippenstein included dozens of other citations of Vance’s appearances on Carlson’s show.”

We’ll likely find out more about him on Tuesday when he and Tim Walz face off in the VP debate. Paul Thornton threw some cold water on the idea of any Trump-like explosions though: “Both candidates are well-adjusted adults not easily baited into bizarre, winding, grievance-laden tangents. So if you’re looking for an evening of candidate meltdowns and TikTok-ready zingers, prepare to be disappointed… Both are capable debaters… [who] can both riff on policy and finish their thoughts in a way that Harris’ opponent could not.”

That said— and based purely on political expedience and ability, and having nothing to do with honesty or the correctness of their positions— Vance has the edge. He comes off as fluent on policy, and he can nimbly respond to attacks, both areas of extreme weakness for his boss. In the 2022 Ohio Senate debate I watched between Vance and then-Rep. Tim Ryan, he used just about every question from moderators as an opportunity to paint Ryan as petty and hypocritical. When Ryan attacked Vance for his work as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Vance put Ryan on his heels by asking which exactly of his own investments Ryan found objectionable. The response was some gibberish about China.

That was when Vance was not nearly as known as he is now— and by known, I mean unliked. Vance in 2024 is a historically unpopular vice presidential nominee, a drawback that only more brightly highlights Walz’s best attribute: People just like the guy.

That came off in his debates with Republican Jeff Johnson in 2018 and Republican Scott Jensen in 2022, both races for Minnesota governor. In both debates, the opponents attacked in ways that Vance did in his debate with Ryan— but with Walz, nothing rattled him. And Walz did indeed get attacked, perhaps because he was the favorite in both races. In 2022, when a moderator asked the candidates to praise each other, all Jensen could muster was that Walz “has a wonderful smile.” Unfazed by the obvious putdown, Walz complimented his opponent for the way he talks about his family. He answered policy questions on climate change, mineral extraction, working with the federal government and pandemic response straightforwardly but not in much detail, something for which both Jensen and Johnson attacked Walz.

And Walz never really took the bait. Nice guys whom people like can do that, and perhaps that is Walz’s biggest advantage over the unpopular yet fully policy-briefed Vance. We’ll see on Tuesday.