Vice President J.D. Vance took to X on Saturday to condemn protesters who he claims followed him and his 3-year-old daughter around shouting, causing his daughter to become increasingly anxious and scared.
He said that he decided to speak with the protesters “in the hopes that I could trade a few minutes of conversation for them leaving my toddler alone,” something nearly all of them agreed to.
Though Vance described the dialogue as a mostly respectful conversation, he then went on to call the protesters “s--t people,” writing, “If you’re chasing a 3-year-old as part of a political protest, you’re a s--t person.”
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Cincinnati’s WCPO 9 News obtained footage of the interaction, which did indeed appear to be a largely respectful conversation in which Vance, among other things, conceded that Russia “certainly did invade Ukraine in 2022.” President Donald Trump has previously accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia and has publicly praised “genius” Vladimir Putin for his “very savvy” attack on Ukraine. Vance, meanwhile, said in 2022 that he does not care what happens to Ukraine “one way or the other.”
When protesters accused the Trump administration of selling the Ukrainians out, Vance rebutted, “With respect, ma’am, I disagree. I think that what we’re doing is we’re actually forcing a diplomatic settlement.”
The interaction came after dozens of protesters rallied in Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills neighborhood, where Vance lives, to protest the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. They were also present on Friday evening and reportedly plan to return on Sunday afternoon.
One protester, a Ukrainian woman who has lived in Cincinnati for 25 years, told WCPO, “My whole family still lives in Ukraine. I’m embarrassed as an American Ukrainian to see what’s happening in America and how we’re abandoning our allies.”
This isn’t the first time protesters have disrupted Vance’s downtime, and it undoubtedly won’t be the last. Last weekend, Vance was ambushed by pro-Ukraine protesters during a planned ski vacation at Vermont’s Sugarbush Resort. Protesters were particularly incensed as the demonstration came soon after the disastrous meeting at the White House between Vance, Trump, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
One Sugarbush employee even mounted her own protest, using the day’s snow report to rebuke the Trump administration’s “direct attack” on national park employees and negligence regarding climate change. Lucy Welch encouraged anyone frustrated by the situation to “direct your anger to the source”: the administration that is “threatening our democracy, our livelihoods, our land.”
The New York Times reported earlier this week that while the post was taken down later that day, Welch was not fired. A spokesperson for Sugarbush told the Times, “We respect the voice and opinion of all our employees but determined that the snow report was not the appropriate medium to share.”
