The morning after Democrats secured both chambers of Congress, Vice President JD Vance posted 614 words on X explaining why. "The reason we lost is the war," he wrote—adding, with a lawyer’s care, that "the president himself said so last night." Donald Trump is the boss for two more years after all, and may still play kingmaker for the Republicans in 2028. Don’t bite the hand that feeds.
You’ll get fake tan all over your mouth. On the core point, Vance is right. Republicans lost not because their voters stayed home but because many of them crossed over.
Saying that about his own administration’s war took some nerve, though it perhaps would have meant more before the midterms. Vance’s post is built suspiciously like an alibi. It cites a "smartest data guy," two pollsters, the president and a Fox News host.
But it doesn’t mention the man who, two days before the first Iran strikes, said that there was "no chance" of a long war in the Middle East. Yet here we are, eight months in, no clear end to an Iran conflict that has laid Trump’s final two years in rubble. Vance had said he will decide after the election whether to run for president in 2028.
Well, the election is over. So how should we read his post? Between the lines, of course.
In this latest edition of Newsweek's Dissected, we take the scalpel to Vance. "And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story…" The polls didn’t overstate the blowout. The final Silver Bulletin average had Democrats up about nine points.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
