J. D. Vance’s Bumpy Ride
It wasn’t the first time that Trump had debased someone who serves him. It wasn’t even the first time that Vance had had to downplay a blasphemy-themed A.I. image.
By Amy Davidson Sorkin
Photo illustration by Cristiana Couceiro; Source photographs from Getty
As recently as a week or two ago, Vice-President J. D. Vance was talking like a man who felt that the odds were in his favor. He’d flown to Hungary to attend a campaign rally for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the most Trumpian of European leaders, and, before leaving, he told reporters at the airport how kind the Hungarian people had been to him. Asked about the war in Iran—the day before, Donald Trump had threatened to destroy the country’s “whole civilization”—Vance suggested that Iran’s insistence on its “right” to enrich uranium might actually represent an opening for a deal. As he put it, “I thought to myself, you know what? My wife has the right to skydive, but she doesn’t jump out of an airplane, because she and I have an agreement that she’s not going to do that, because I don’t want my wife jumping out of an airplane.”
The days that followed were a bleak reminder that whatever rights Vance may think he has—to his dignity, to his faith, or to his position as the MAGA heir apparent—are contingent on the agreement he made to subordinate himself to Trump. And the President doesn’t seem to mind if Vance humiliates himself running errands. Indeed, Trump has treated a new ballroom as more important to his legacy than his Vice-President is.
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