Is JD Vance misunderstood? Friend of future VP defends previous comments
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JD Vance has faced media scrutiny for some of his comments since becoming Trump’s second in command, but friend James Orr says the Vice President has been misunderstood.
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In brief…
- Vance made headlines with “cat lady” comments, previous Trump criticism and suggestions that Britain was now an Islamist country under the Labour government.
- James Orr says these have been jokes or misreported.
- He describes JD Vance as someone “very curious about the world” and has praised the cabinet Donald Trump is forming.
What's the story?
Before 2024, JD Vance was probably best known to many as the only Republican to have Glenn Close play his grandma in a movie about his life.
But when he became Donald Trump's vice president pick, he was catapulted into the global spotlight – with all the scrutiny that comes with it.
During the campaign, some of Vance's comments came back to haunt both Republicans, but did nothing to diminish Trump's popularity with US voters, sweeping to a decisive victory on 5 November.
But some of his comments cut deep, and are still relevant post-election, especially now he is one of the most powerful men in the world.
Vance, however, has been widely misunderstood, claims James Orr – a friend of Vance. Vance has referred to the Cambridge university philosophy of religion professor as his “British sherpa”. He has also been referred to as a “mentor” to the new Vice President.
Orr has praised Vance as a “trad bro”, and tells The News Agents that the VP’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, demonstrates why Donald Trump is so popular with "disaffected swathes of the American electorate".
He’s discussed some of Vance’s controversial comments he’s made since being thrust under the spotlight of Trumpism, explained what his friend really meant, and what he brings to US politics.
In defence of his 'childless cat lady' comments
During the 2024 election campaign, a 2021 interview with Vance emerged in which he referred to Democrat rivals (naming Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg specifically) as "childless cat-ladies who are miserable". These were widely criticised for demonising adults who were not parents.
Orr claims this was "totally normal rhetoric you would find in the cut and thrust of the political debate", adding it was less offensive than Hillary Clinton's 2016 "deplorables" comments.
He believes Vance's words were due to population concerns.
"There are very few parts of the world now that are not looking at a collapse in their total fertility rates," Orr continues.
He says governments don't want to tell people how to live their lives or whether they should have children, but need to secure a "flourishing future" for their nation.
"When you get a ratio of taxpayer to pensioner which is approaching three to one in some parts of the world, that presages serious economic and social unrest," he says.
"This is really a question that every politician is going to have to wrestle with. And I think the Democrats and the Republicans have begun to look at that."
JD Vance slips up in US TV interview
In defence of his Trump criticism
When Trump first came to power in 2016, JD Vance publicly referred to him as an "idiot" and "reprehensible". In private, he's known to have referred to him as "Hitler".
Now, he's the Republican's second in command.
Orr says he has never heard Vance speak critically of Trump in private, and his comments were made as a private citizen in the first few months of his first administration.
"The Vance I know is the person who recognises that the willingness to change one's mind is the only sure sign that one's got one," he says.
"When the facts change, one's mind should change."
Very few people in 2016 thought that Trump was the harbinger of anything positive for the right and I think over the course of the first administration and the successes which Vance believed those that administration brought with it, he began to change his mind."
He adds the difference in 2024 is that the conversation – and support – has moved from Trump, to Trumpism.
"We're talking about a genuinely new alternative for the right in the United States that transcends the tired debates between big state and small state.
"We're actually seeing something genuinely new evolving in terms of a new intellectual outlook for the right."
He praises the "diversity of views" of Trump's new cabinet, despite it facing criticism for who has been appointed.
It includes an anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist in charge of Health and Human Services (Robert F Kennedy JR), two people who have faced child sex charges (Matt Gaetz and Linda McMahon) and a former Fox News host responsible for the nation's defence (Pete Hegseth).
In defence of his 'Britain is an Islamic country' comments
While at the National Conservatism Conference in July, JD Vance pondered the question of what the first "truly Islamist country" to get a nuclear weapon would be.
His response was reported as a "joke", saying: "Maybe it's Iran, maybe Pakistan kind of counts, and then we sort of decided maybe it's actually the UK since Labour just took over".
The comment was strongly rejected by senior members of the UK government.
"It was a wry joke. It was clearly intended as humorous, and as with a lot of the humour that comes from Team Trump, it does have a serious point. I think it's directionally true," Orr says.
"The essence of humour is to exaggerate an underlying phenomenon that is maybe not plausibly true at the moment, but may one day be true in the distant future.
"Is it the case that Britain's going to become the first Islamist state with a nuclear weapon tomorrow? Of course not, and only the most humorous professional defence taker would interpret that remark literally."
He refers to the 81 proscribed terror groups in the UK, and the high number of those which are linked to Islam.
"It should worry all of us. It's certainly shocking to most Americans. The joke was funny for the same reason that most jokes are funny because it exaggerated something real."
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