Editor's Note: Further video of the event shows JD Vance — surrounded by security detail — engaging with peaceful protesters in Cincinnati. This headline has been updated to reflect the video.
You can see the video of the confrontation below.
Original story here:
Critics on Saturday called out Vice President JD Vance for “using his child to virtue signal and troll” after he claimed his 3-year-old daughter was subjected to protesters “[shouting]” at and “chasing” her.
Vance, in a post on X, wrote he was “walking [his] 3-year-old daughter” when “a group of ‘Slava Ukraini’ protestors followed [them] around and shouted as [his] daughter grew increasingly anxious and scared.”
“I decided to speak with the protesters in the hopes that I could trade a few minutes of conversation for them leaving my toddler alone,” Vance wrote, noting “nearly all of them agreed.”
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“It was a mostly respectful conversation, but if you’re chasing a 3-year-old as part of a political protest, you’re a s——— person,” Vance added.
Observers were quick to cast doubt on the vice president’s account.
Author and Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts argued “just like Musk, Vance is using his child to virtue signal and troll.”
“Imagine believing that Secret Service would allow people to ‘chase’ the Vice President’s toddler,” Watts said.
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Kyiv, Ukraine based foreign policy and security analyst Jimmy Rushton posted video of the protest, noting “it's pretty clear Vance is lying; the protest was at the bottom of Vance's street, which was closed by police.”
"It would have been impossible for the protesters to ‘follow’ Vance and his family around as he claimed,” Rushton wrote.
More videos of the protest, Rushton added, “show a relatively small number of peaceful protestors outside the police cordon at the bottom of JD Vance's street.
“None of the videos support his version of events,” the analyst said.
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The Kyiv-based expert also took issue with Vance’s February trip to Europe, where Rushton described Vance as “[lecturing]" Europeans "about free speech.”
“Now you're whining about entirely peaceful, ‘mostly respectful’ protesters, who were exercising their First Amendment rights and who posed zero threat to you or your family due to your Secret Service protection,” Rushton wrote.
Alt-right commentator and 2017 “Unite The Right” organizer Richard Spencer — yes, that Richard Spencer — claimed Vance “fully embodies the ‘Karen’ stereotype.”
“First, he’s lying," Spencer wrote. "Beyond that, he has no conception that big things are at play: Ukraine’s national survival, not to mention Americans’ right to protest. It’s all about his ‘feelings’ and personal privacy. You’re a ’s——— person' if you make him uncomfortable. Truly pathetic.”
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“ Liberal pundit” Art Candee took issue with Vance’s description of “walking” his daughter, and claimed the vice president is using his “kid like a human shield like Elon Musk.”
"Who walks their daughter?" the pundit asked. “... Perhaps JD Vance should have thought about her before he became the ’s———- person’ he’s crying about."
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