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As a new video shows, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance turned the joyful task of ordering doughnuts into a deliciously awkward encounter.
The Ohio senator walked into a doughnut shop in Valdosta, Georgia, before his speech on Thursday and introduced himself to a waitress who immediately said she did not want to be filmed. This stilted dialogue does not help the Republican candidate escape the “weird” label.
“I’m JD Vance. I’m running for vice president,” Vance tells the doughnut shop employee, who simply replies, “Okay.”
“We’re doing two dozen. Just a random selection of things here,” he continues, browsing the donuts in the display cases.
“Everything. Lots of frosting here. Sprinkles. Lots of cinnamon rolls. Just anything that makes sense,” Vance said.
While the employee fills his box of donuts, Vance tries to make small talk by asking the employees behind the counter how long they have been working there.
He asked an employee how long the store had been in business and was told that it had been four years.
“About four years? OK,” Vance said. “Well, we picked this spot. I didn’t know if it had been here for 20 years or four. You never know.”
The clip comes as Vance tries to challenge the “strange” description given to him by Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Adding to that reputation have been a series of resurfaced clips and text messages that show Vance’s extreme views, including calling pregnancies resulting from rape “uncomfortable,” branding Harris a “childless cat lady,” suggesting parents should have more voting rights than childless adults, and dramatically changing his opinion on Trump.
Vance’s embarrassing visit to a doughnut shop is reminiscent of another recent botched food stop – which social media users forgot.
Earlier this week, Vance tried to make a joke when he ordered a Philly cheesesteak at the famous Pat’s King of Steaks, but he ended up being accused of committing a “crime against humanity.”
“I don’t like Swiss cheese either, but everyone says it’s offensive,” Vance told an employee at the restaurant that is considered the inventor of the cheesesteak and famously only uses American cheese, provolone or Cheez Whiz in its delicacy. “Why do you hate Swiss cheese so much?”
The employee replied, “We don’t hate it, we just don’t use it. We usually use Cheez Whiz.”
While Vance appeared to be cleverly alluding to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign when he asked for a Swiss cheesesteak sandwich during a visit to Pat’s, the Internet felt that the encounter had damaged his chances in the election.
He also recently found himself in a dilemma when one of his attempted jokes backfired on him.
When Vance was asked this week how he was preparing for the debate with Tim Walz in October, he replied, “Well, I found a good friend from home who exaggerates and lies a lot. I’m letting him fill in for Tim Walz.”
But the insult quickly backfired when several social media users joked that Vance was referring to Donald Trump, who is notorious for lying about everything from election results and crowd sizes to the weather. The Washington Post It is estimated that he made more than 30,000 false or misleading statements during his presidency.
