J.D. Vance Defends Offensive Tweet About Alec Baldwin Prop Gun Shooting
Senate candidate J.D. Vance came under fire in October after he made a tasteless joke about the tragic prop-gun death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins to attack outspoken Republican criticAlec Baldwin.
Now Vance is defending the bombastic rhetoric and tasteless tweets as something Ohio voters should want in a candidate.
Vance was heavily criticized for a tweet to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asking him to “let Trump back on” the social media network because “we need Alec Baldwin tweets.”
Considering Vance criticized then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 for making “reprehensible” remarks, Spectrum News’ Taylor Popielarz was curious how the “Hillbilly Elegy” author justified similar hot takes.
When Alec Baldwin fired a gun on a movie set last fall that led to the death of a cinematographer, #OHSen candidate @JDVance1 tagged Twitter’s CEO in a tweet and asked him to “let Trump back on. We need Alec Baldwin tweets."
I asked Vance how he justifies that type of rhetoric: pic.twitter.com/vWCbthK4oz— Taylor Popielarz (@TaylorPopielarz) January 24, 2022
As you can see in the clip, Vance defended making offensive jokes because, “unfortunately, our country’s kind of a joke. And we should be able to tell jokes about it. Right?”
Vance then attempted to make the case that it’s better for a politician to be offensive than not.
“I think it’s important for our politicians to have a sense of humor. I think it’s important for us to be real people,” Vance said. “Every single person that I knew was joking about what would Donald Trump say if he was on Twitter. Right?
“So I think the idea that we can’t have somewhat offensive humor sometimes from our politicians is basically just asking us to have fake politicians all the time. That’s not what I’m going to be.
“Maybe it turns some people off, but I think the realness turns more people on.”
Current polls suggest that Vance is running fourth out of five candidates in the Republican Senate primary in Ohio.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
