Andrew’s back from northern Michigan today. Thanks to Ben and Jim for shouldering the Morning Shots load in his absence—and if any of you are trying to offload a lake house right now, Andrew might be in a very suggestible mood. Happy Monday.

Sir, Beware JD Vance

by William Kristol

As the deplorable Laura Loomer seeks to purge the administration of closet Never Trumpers (her latest target is Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll), may I offer her a suggestion: Look higher up on the food chain. Keep your eyes on Driscoll’s good friend and law school classmate, JD Vance.

After all, it was Vance’s actions this past week that seemed designed to undercut the president on the issue that is perhaps most dangerous to him, the matter of Jeffrey Epstein.

First, Vance sought to convene a very unusual meeting at his residence, with Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and others, to discuss Epstein. As far as we know, the Vice President hadn’t been particularly involved in the Epstein matter. Unlike Bondi, Blanche, and Patel, for example, Vance presumably doesn’t know what’s in the Epstein files. And unlike Wiles, he’s not responsible for coordinating the administration’s messaging. So it’s unclear why Vance suddenly chose to involve himself in the Epstein situation so conspicuously.

One might also note that Bondi, Blanche, Patel, and Wiles seem to have been pretty disciplined in recent weeks in coordinating their efforts to carry out the coverup. Suddenly, Vance gets involved, and news of a big Epstein-focused meeting leaks.

So the day before Trump’s big tariffs announcement, Vance managed—inadvertently of course!—to place attention back on to Epstein.

After news of the planned meeting got out, it was moved to the White House, where, of course, it could have been held quietly all along. The next day the vice president took himself off to Great Britain for a meeting with the British foreign minister and a nice family vacation.

But Vance chose to interrupt his vacation yesterday for an interview with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox Business channel. Bartiromo predictably asked Vance about Epstein. Vance chose not simply to deflect and say blandly that the administration was handling the situation responsibly. Nor did he choose to defend Donald Trump and assert confidently that Trump had done nothing wrong.

No. Instead Vance gave the simmering Epstein issue new oxygen. He emphasized that “President Trump has demanded full transparency” on this issue—an assertion that only raised the question of why the administration has actually released no information at all.

Vance then pivoted to attacking the Biden administration for doing nothing on Epstein for four years, and he speculated on how many Democrats were involved with Epstein, including Bill Clinton. But this simply served to increase curiosity about just what the files show—yes, about Clinton, but also about Trump. Beneath the mask of a partisan attack on Clinton, Vance seems to have—inadvertently to be sure!—aimed a dagger at his boss.

Vance went on to emphasize that “a lot of Americans want answers. I certainly want answers.” With this bland statement, Vance succeeded—inadvertently, needless to say!—in reminding us that we don’t yet have the answers we want and deserve.

So Vance’s comments contributed to the sense that the question of the Epstein files is still very much an open issue, one that the administration has to deal with.

Perhaps Vance was simply being clumsy. But if one had a suspicious mind, one might think Vance knows what he’s doing. Perhaps he doesn’t mind seeing Trump embroiled in the Epstein scandal. Vance presumably had no connection to Epstein, so he’s at no risk if the files are released. And to the degree Trump gets damaged by the Epstein matter, it would make it harder for Trump to run again in 2028—something Trump obviously wants to do, something Vance is intelligent enough to see that Trump wants to do, and something Vance presumably doesn’t want Trump to do.

The next time President Trump re-reads Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he might want to focus on Act 1, Scene 2, lines 201-224. Caesar is famously suspicious of one man in particular:

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous . . .
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.

Now it’s true that Vance may not have a “lean and hungry” look. But isn’t Vance the type who thinks too much? Does Vance appear to be at heart’s ease? Is Vance happy beholding someone greater than himself?

Caesar allowed Mark Antony to reassure him about Cassius, and dismissed the warnings of a soothsayer to beware the Ides of March. He put aside his concerns. Will Trump make that mistake about Vance? As we approach the Ides of August, shouldn’t Trump’s loyal soothsayer Laura Loomer warn her beloved leader about the dangerous man who lurks nearby? His name is JD Vance.