Vice President JD Vance has shrugged off the controversy over a racist video shared by President Trump using a bizarre defense.
On Friday, the 79-year-old president posted a video that featured animated versions of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes. The post was roundly condemned, even as Trump and his cronies rushed to defend it.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the media of “fake outrage,” while Trump himself offered a muddled response. He said he “didn’t see” the racist bit but also claimed that he “didn’t make a mistake” and refused to apologize. The video, which the Daily Beast has chosen not to show, was so bad that even some Republicans risked Trump’s petty revenge by condemning it.
The vice president might have thought he had avoided the scandal, what with him being in Italy for the Winter Olympics at the time. On Wednesday morning, however, he was set upon by the press corps.
When grilled on the subject by a reporter, he offered up a Mike Johnson-style defense, leaning on an excuse frequently deployed by the Republican Speaker of the House when faced with a Trump-induced scandal.
Vance said: “Yeah, I mean it was...it was one of those things where either because the time zone changed or because we were so busy, the controversy had started and then died out by the time I even paid attention to it, you know.”
“The president said a staffer posted a video he hadn’t even watched the whole thing. When he watched the whole thing, he took it down. It’s not a real controversy. We have much, much more real problems to focus on,” he said.
After the video sparked an uproar and quickly disappeared from Trump’s Truth Social, he told reporters on Air Force One that he didn’t feel the need to apologize. Vance agreed.
“Should he apologize for posting a video and then taking it down? No, I don’t think so,” he told reporters, before adding, “I think people post things on social media, and if you post something you don’t like, you can just take it down, and that’s what he did.”
Elsewhere in the eight-minute gaggle, Vance also pleaded with American Olympians to stop being mean to President Trump.
“Yes, you’re going to have some Olympic athletes who pop off about politics. I feel like that happens every Olympics. My advice to them would be to try to bring the country together. And when you’re representing the country, you’re representing Democrats and Republicans, you’re there to play a sport and you’re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal. You’re not there to pop off about politics,” he said.
