Vance 'debasing himself' for Trump as he kills his chances for the presidency: analysis
President Donald Trump has decided that his latest scapegoat is Vice President JD Vance, columnist Dana Milbank pointed out while asking how much more humiliation he can take.
In a column for the New York Times, Milbank pointed to the awkward conversation between the president and Vance at a closed-door Easter lunch last week.
Business Insider politics reporter Bryan Metzger captured a video of Trump's full speech at the event, which the White House has attempted to remove. The event was supposed to be "press-free," which was supposed to mean no coverage, but it was made public, only to be quickly deleted. It didn't matter, reporters were still able to save the video and have uploaded it to ensure it is still available.
“It’s going good, sir,” Vance replied from the audience after Trump demanded his update on Iran.
“Do you see it happening?” Trump asked, wondering if the war would end.
“Uh,” the vice president scrambled. “We’re going to brief it to you.”
Milbank noted that's when Trump delivered his punchline. “So, if it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance. If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”
The crowd laughed.
On Tuesday, the humiliation deepened as Vance was in Hungary, taking questions from the press, when Trump posted a Truth Social update threatening Iran, "a whole civilization will die tonight."
"I don't have an update from Steve Witkoff," Vance told reporters, pulling out his cell phone.
"Oh," Vance paused, before revealing that Witkoff did send him a message. He said he wouldn't reveal anything without reading it in full and thinking about it for a moment.
Milbank asked if Vance had figured out that "the joke is on him."
While Vance keeps "debasing himself," he seems to get "less and less in return."
Vance has made it no secret that he's got presidential aspirations, but he'll likely have to face off against Secretary of State Marco Rubio who is far more popular in political polls. Milbank noted that it's dimming Vance's political future.
The columnist explained that over the years, Vance has consistently made "devil’s bargains" on issues he once claimed were red lines for him, and, much like his predecessor, Vance is getting nothing for it.
"What once might have been a cruise to the 2028 Republican presidential nomination now looks more like a run through the Strait of Hormuz," wrote Milbank. Meanwhile, "the ethnonationalist right to which Mr. Vance tethered himself now appears to be faltering at home and abroad."
Vance is responding to the ordeal the way he has in the past, said the columnist, "he's humiliating himself."
White House officials "let it be known" that Vance has been skeptical of the war in Iran as an "America First" loyalist. Now, however, Milbank wrote, "Trump has cut off that route of escape, saying Mr. Vance was 'maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.' Mr. Vance is reduced to maintaining that war is OK now because 'we have a smart president whereas in the past we’ve had dumb presidents.'"
Milbank closed by saying that he thinks Vance isn't a fool, but his eagerness to be "Trump's punchline" is "tragic" because he could have "used his office to be something more."
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