JD Vance’s Latest Comedy Fail: Mocking Miss Teen USA Contestants
From Kamala Harris And Tim Walz As they surged to the top of the Democratic Party’s list of candidates, their campaign proved nimble in launching extremely humorous attacks that went viral on social media, using memes as an effective political tool. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, Who can’t order donuts efficientlyapparently decided it was time to see what he could dig up from this pile of old memes as Harris and Walz sat down for their first on-camera interview on Thursday night.
“BREAKING: I got the entire Kamala Harris interview on CNN,” he tweeted The interview aired Thursday, along with a clip from the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant, when South Carolina Caitlin Upton stuttering answer to a question from Friday Night Lights star Aimee Teegarden About one-fifth of Americans cannot locate the country on a map.
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The attack was ineffective even on its face: Many responses criticized Vance for mocking a young woman and rehashing a moment that she later admitted made her thinking about suicide“It was horrible, and it happened every day for two years,” she recalled. New York Magazine in 2015.
On Friday, Vance was asked by CNN John Berman whether he knew about the impact the clip had on Upton’s mental health. He said he did not know, and that “my heart goes out to her and I hope that she is okay.”
“Politics has become so lame, John, so boring,” Vance added. “You can have fun while making a good argument to the American people about how you’re going to improve their lives.”
When asked by Berman if he wanted to apologize to Upton, Vance declined.
“John, I’m not going to apologize for posting a joke, but I want the best for Caitlin,” he said. “I hope she’s okay and, again, I want to say that one bad moment shouldn’t define anyone and the best way to deal with this is to laugh at yourself.”
In a statement to Vanity Fair, “It’s unfortunate that 17 years later, this issue is still being brought up,” Upton said. “There’s not much more to say about it at this point. Regardless of political views, one thing I know is that social media and cyberbullying need to stop. For anyone else going through something similar, please visit EndCyberBullying.Org and White Flag as a resource.”
A little context takes Vance’s attempt at humor from a painful misstep to a tumble into the rhetorical abyss. First, Donald Trump owned the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants from 1996 to 2015. Trump was again accused (and denied) of catching teenage beauty queens changing backstage at the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant. As a former Miss Vermont Teen USA Mariah Billado told Buzzfeed News in 2016“I remember putting on my dress really quickly because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a man here.’”
Some of the contestants were as young as 15 that year. Billado said she remembered Trump saying something like, “Don’t worry, girls, I’ve seen it all before.” Several other contestants anonymously confirmed her account, while others said they didn’t remember it happening.
