Ohio Senator JD Vance voiced pointed criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris's public speaking style and the Democratic Party’s stance on free speech during a recent interview with podcast host Joe Rogan.
Vance, former President Donald Trump's running mate in the US elections, likened Harris’s communication approach to "talking in circles" and accused Democratic leaders of favoring censorship to silence opposing voices.
During the interview released on Thursday, Vance expressed frustration with Harris’s speeches, describing them as wordy but lacking substance. "I give a lot of speeches, so there's actually a skill to this," Vance said, suggesting Harris’s speeches demonstrate an extreme version of verbosity. "I think she is the Michael Jordan of using as many words as possible to say as little as possible. There's actually a certain gift that she has," he added.
He noted that Harris’s communication often leaves audiences questioning her message. "You listen to her talk," he elaborated, "and you know you're a hundred, 200 words into it, you're 500 words into it and you're like, 'What the hell did she just say?' She didn’t say anything."
Vance also took issue with Harris's stance on justice and opposition, referencing her comments on Donald Trump potentially targeting political rivals if re-elected. According to Vance, Harris's statements contrast with her record, as she has "actively bragged" about prosecuting political adversaries. Vance suggested that Harris is projecting her own methods onto Trump, arguing, "She will go out and say that if Donald Trump is the president he's going to arrest his political opponents, even though he already was president and he didn't do that."
The conversation shifted to free speech when Vance criticized the Democratic Party’s purported comfort with censoring dissenting voices. "We're not trying to censor our fellow Americans," he stated. “We'll attack Kamala on her policies or her ideas, but we're not trying to say, 'You should be silenced because you disagree with us.'”
Vance described this inclination to censor as "anathema" to his beliefs and attributed it to Democratic leadership. He argued that the current direction of the party involves a growing acceptance of silencing opinions, a trend he called troubling for American democracy.
Further expanding on free speech, Vance said, "If you say that an 11-year-old should not get gender-transition drugs, that is hate speech, according to a significant subset of the left," pointing to the complexities in defining hate speech.
In a humorous comparison, Vance recounted an experience with his young son to emphasize his point. He described baking an Oreo cake with his four-year-old son, only to find half the Oreos missing. When questioned, his son deflected, claiming, "I didn’t eat the Oreos, you did." Vance compared this evasion tactic to what he views as Harris’s approach to addressing critical issues. "That's the way that Kamala Harris lies," he alleged.
