Summary
Long before Vice President JD Vance shrugged off the killings of American civilians Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis, he had already established his brutal pattern of showing remorselessness for the victims. But with the senseless and savage killings of Good and Pretti, Vance has gone even lower to actively blaming the victims, and pushing baseless claims about them to absolve their killers.
The profoundly uncharismatic vice president faces a much graver problem in his political future than his lack of personal appeal: Vance’s on-the-record support for the men who kill vulnerable American civilians will never go away.
Analysis
Vance warms to vigilante killers of protesters and a homeless man
In 2021, Vance defended Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year old who shot and killed two protesters and wounded a third during the city’s Black Lives Matter protests, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In an interview with Newsmax, Vance said that Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all charges, “made good decisions and decided to be a positive force in his community.” Vance’s fondness for the killer disgusted many on the left who viewed his comments as dangerously inflaming racial bias and encouraging vigilante violence and white supremacy.
At the same time, Vance’s stance delighted many on the right, who see Rittenhouse as a symbol of white self-defense and gun rights. Some conservatives, however, saw the danger of championing a teenage killer. But regardless of one’s view of the verdict, the fact remains that Vance described Rittenhouse’s killings as an example of “manly virtue,” while offering no words of support for the Americans who were killed
In 2024, Vance’s support for vigilante killers continued with Daniel Penny, a 24-year old Marine veteran who choked an unarmed homeless man named Jordan Neely to death on the New York subway. While Neely had become agitated on the train, witnesses said that Penny went too far, stating that they feared he would kill Neely. After a video of Penny fatally choking Neely for five minutes emerged, Penny was charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. When Penny was acquitted of homicide charges, Vance invited him to the Army-Navy football game, providing him with a spot in Trump’s suite. Vance wrote on X, “Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone. I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”
Again, Vance showed no sympathy for the man who died.
Vance blames the Victims, while hiding behind false assertions
In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Renée Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, Vance rushed to blame the victim while absolving the ICE agent. Vance claimed that Ross had “absolute immunity” from prosecution and deserved a “debt of gratitude” from the public, before a legal investigation of the case had been conducted. Rather than showing any semblance of compassion for the victim, Good, or for her grieving family, Vance, along with numerous Republican leaders, called her a “domestic terrorist” and a “deranged leftist” who was murdered in “a tragedy of her own making.” Yet, the fatal shooting of Good—a 37-year-old mother of three and an accomplished poet who was last seen smiling in her SUV and saying “I’m not mad at you dude.” to the ICE agent—sparked peaceful protests, candlelight vigils, and an outpouring of grief and anger across the United States.
Just 17 days later, Alex Pretti was killed by two federal agents identified as Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez who fired ten shots at Pretti while he was kneeling on the ground. Again Vance refused to express sympathy for the victim, refusing to apologize for the wrongful killing of Pretti by federal agents. But Vance went further: he reposted false allegations on X made by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, labeling Pretti as “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.”
Instead of acknowledging that the agents who killed Pretti should be investigated, Vance amplified false claims that Pretti showed up with “ill intent” at a protest beforehand. When questioned about pushing the inaccuracies, the reptilian Vance, in his craven parroting of the president, doubled-down rather than showing any accountability, attacking the press for reporting factual accounts of the tragedy.
A never-Trumper caves to racism and hate-mongering
Contradictory facts rarely constrain the Trump administration from asserting their cynical, false narratives. American lives lost on American soil under deeply questionable circumstances scarcely warrant nuanced analysis from Trump and his sycophants. But then, while Trump may very well lack the mental and emotional tools for an empathetic analysis—as psychologist Dan P. Mcadams has observed, Trump is “incapable of describing an inner psychological life or of identifying traces of reflection, emotional nuance, doubt or fallibility.”—what makes Vance worse is that he might have the tools for empathy, but refuses to use them. Before his descent into the bowels of MAGA’s racist extremism, Vance wrote a reflective memoir on his impoverished upbringing, and once compared Trump to Hitler.
Polls show Americans feel strongly that Trump has gone too far with his immigration policies. Yet as Trump continues his unilateral federal intervention in American cities, stoking fear, tension, and confusion among American citizens, the next tragedy is not hard to imagine. It’s unknown when or where it might occur, but one thing is certain: JD Vance, the likely MAGA heir and Republican presidential nominee in 2028, will champion the killer, not the vulnerable American citizen who is the victim. Voters should hold him accountable for that.