Allies of JD Vance are scrambling to assure voters that any MAGA revolt against the vice president is entirely fake and coordinated by his enemies.
Vance, 41, has spent seven days under fire from the online right, where his detractors are rallying behind a “Never Vance” banner, the Washington Post reports. They’re calling him “unfit” for the job over his push for an Iran peace deal. Some even compare him to former President Barack Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
One close ally told the newspaper it was “obvious to anyone with an IQ above 70” that the pile-on has been “totally inauthentic and probably coordinated to a certain extent.” That person and two others familiar with Vance’s strategy discussed internal thinking with the newspaper only on condition their names weren’t revealed.
The barrage those allies dismissed included posts from conservative pundits Marc Thiessen, Batya Ungar-Sargon and Ben Shapiro. A Post review of posts by conservative influencers on X showed attacks on the vice president jumped right after his July 15 sit-down with Joe Rogan, which ran for almost three hours.
On the podcast, Vance branded himself a “reasonable moderate” on Israel policy. He pointed to a Time report on an influence operation backing Israel that a onetime Trump campaign aide runs, and said paid influencers were going after him dishonestly. His retort, he told Rogan: “Well, go to hell.”
Vance’s team monitors the attacks but argues the hostility tells the party’s grassroots that the GOP establishment loathes him, the Post reported. Advisers believe that could lift him in a primary. A spokesperson said Vance is focused on “fighting for the president’s agenda and delivering wins for the American people.”
Some accounts vowing to line up behind Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 55, against Vance in 2028 did not appear to belong to American voters, judging by their profiles, the Post reported.
Rubio, the pick of traditionalists and the party’s business wing, has been eating into Vance’s lead in primary polling, the newspaper reported, though Vance still tops the field. Rubio has said he would back him in a 2028 run.
Republican resistance to Vance predates his selection as Trump’s 2024 running mate. Donors with hawkish views and conservative commentators pushed Trump to pass him over for Doug Burgum, 69, or Rubio. Burgum now runs the Interior Department.
Last week, Jon Schweppe of the American Principles Project shared a graphic to X showing Vance’s standing with Republicans holding firm through what he called an “anti-Vance op.” Replies flooded in by the dozen from accounts that weren’t following him, every one attacking Vance.
No large account had shared the post, Schweppe noted. “But it’s absolutely organized,” he told the Post.
Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, 67, drew Republican fury only in the closing weeks of his first term, when Trump and his backers blamed him for declining to try to reverse the 2020 result.
Marc Short, Pence’s White House chief of staff, told the Post the abuse aimed at Vance outstrips anything his former boss absorbed across almost four years as vice president.
Short said Pence never let a gap with Trump show, even in front of staff and Cabinet officials. Vance has at times hinted at a different line on Iran, and Trump has said his deputy is “philosophically a little bit different” on the issue.
Short added that Vance’s operation has been readier to air its disagreements. “So I think that does create more scrutiny when you do that,” he told the Post.
The Daily Beast has contacted Vance’s office for comment on this story.
