Podcaster Jennifer Welch criticized Vice President JD Vance during an MSNBC appearance, pointing out that the fact he won’t even defend his own family from racist attacks betrays just how unprincipled he is.
Welch is the latest voice to weigh in after Vance refused to condemn Young Republican leaders once their racist, misogynistic and antisemitic group chat was leaked online.
Last week, Politico published 2,900 pages of leaked exchanges between a dozen state-level Young Republican leaders in different states.
Young Republican leaders called Black people “monkeys” and “the watermelon people” and talked about reinstituting slavery. They also praised the genocidal Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, and referenced raping Democrats and gassing them much like the Nazis did to the Jews and others during the Holocaust.
Vance dismissed these messages as “stupid” jokes made by “kids.” He said he planned to warn his children—“especially my boys”—to be cautious about what they share in group chats or online, advising them to assume “some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.”
But Welch pointed out how unacceptable his reaction was because he failed to condemn behavior from members of his party who do not view people of color as equal to them in any way—and this would include his wife, Usha, and his kids, who are mixed-race. Usha Vance is the daughter of Telugu-speaking Indian Hindu immigrants who hail from Andhra Pradesh.
Welch said:
“He is married to a woman of Indian descent. He has mixed race children.”
“So to all of the MAGA voters out there — if this man will not defend his wife, and will not defend his kids, do you think he gives a crap about you? Or anything to do with you?”
You can hear what she said in the video below.
Clearly, she hit a nerve because MAGA was not happy.
But others pointed out just how accurate Welch’s observations are.
The Vances first met at Yale Law School and married in 2014. Usha Vance previously attended the University of Cambridge and served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, the latter when he was still a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit.
But none of these accomplishments—let alone her long relationship with her husband—matter to the MAGA faithful; there was significant backlash after Vance was named President Donald Trump’s running mate because, as one GOP critic put it, he is married to “a brown.”
