J.D. Vance: Only ‘Fake Polls’ Say We’re Not Doing Great
Vance claimed that Kamala Harris “insiders” are “very worried” about their candidate’s election prospects.
FACT CHECK: Kamala Harris is surging in the polls. You almost can’t turn on Fox News these days without seeing a host or a contributor or a top Republican urging Donald Trump to run a more disciplined campaign (despite the fact that it’s obviously a futile effort).
Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream echoed that sentiment during her interview with Trump running-mate J.D. Vance yesterday. On Friday, Fox News host Martha MacCallum suggested the Trump campaign replace Vance with Nikki Haley. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Vance did nothing to help himself yesterday.
If Vance didn’t know in advance he was there to defend his candidacy, he could not have missed the point when Bream began the interview with a clip of Haley saying the Trump campaign has to expand its appeal beyond the MAGA base.
Vance responded by saying, nonsensically, “Ambassador Haley is right that we have to reach a broader group of voters, but I think that we’re doing exactly that.” Ignoring Donald Trump’s unhinged rhetoric, Vance claimed, “We’ve been making a very simple argument that when Kamala Harris became president – or vice president, I should say, she caused policies that led to a rapid increase in inflation and a rise in chaos around the world. When Donald Trump was president, we had stable prices, we had prosperity, we had higher take-home pay for American workers and we had peace across the world.
He went on to say, dubiously, “we actually have a vision for bringing down energy costs, for bringing down food costs, for making housing more affordable for American citizens, and we have been running on that.”
You know that the show’s producer and/or network was more interested in warning Vance than in hearing about the campaign’s “vision” because Bream followed up by saying, “I want to get to some of the policy but first, a little bit more on the campaign.” She quoted The Washington Post, saying, “With so many seeking his confidence, there’s one thing that no one will tell him. What’s most in need of fixing is the candidate himself.” She added that Vivek Ramaswami says Trump is “receptive” to criticism. (Never mind that Trump recently said he’s “entitled to personal attacks on Harris.”) “Who is the president listening to and are there going to be more changes at the top of the campaign?” Bream concluded, pointedly.
Vance blathered about how Trump “listens to everybody” and that “it’s one of his great strengths as a leader” that he solicits opinions from "everyone from his campaign staff, uh, to the people who serve him his food at a restaurant.” It’s all in service of trying to “understand where the American people are on the issues of the day.”
After another detail-free jag about Trump’s great plans to help Americans, Vance said, also pointedly, “I think that what a lot of the people who are giving Donald Trump advice would, I think, do well to understand is that Donald Trump is carrying the message out there to the American people every single day. I’m doing it every single day and we’re just going to keep on doing it for the next 80 days.”
Bream was not buying it. She noted that the polls show Harris leading Trump among likely voters in Arizona and even North Carolina and that she has narrowed his lead significantly in Georgia and Nevada.
“These are critical states,” Bream said, that will be needed for a Trump win. Will there be any pivots or reconfiguring of strategy, she pressed, “because you talk about your message but it is not landing.”
Vance responded by saying, “the polls tend to radically overstate Democrats,” and that Kamala Harris is on “a bit of a sugar high.” Then he claimed that she has already “leveled off” according to his campaign’s internal polling.
Then Vance claimed to have some inside dope from the Harris campaign. “If you talk to insiders in the Kamala Harris campaign, they’re very worried about where they are because the American people just don’t buy the idea that Kamala Harris, who has been vice president for three and a half years, is somehow going to tackle the inflation crisis in a way tomorrow that she hasn’t for the past 1,300 days.”
Then Vance proved why he’s the most unpopular vice presidential candidate in modern history: “Giving Kamala Harris control over inflation policy, Shannon, it’s like giving Jeffrey Epstein control over human trafficking policy.”
It’s not just the presidential candidate who’s the problem.
You can see why below, from the August 18, 2024 Fox News Sunday.
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