JD Vance’s Weird Enemies List

Andrew Speno is one of my oldest, closest friends in the PR biz. He’s like the big brother I never wanted. 

We worked on the same syndicated radio show in the 1990s and quickly bonded over our nerd-like obsession with boxing, George Carlin, and a quirky new cartoon called South Park. Andrew went on to become the Fox news anchor in Oklahoma City before venturing into PR work. He’s also a devout Christian and weekly churchgoer.

So, just as a goof, a few years ago I went on Cameo and paid Tommy “The Hitman” Hearns to cut a video, congratulating Andrew on his conversion to Judaism. (Which I thought would be very funny.)

Alas, Hearns' speech was so slurred that Andrew had no idea what The Hitman was saying. Every sentence was horribly garbled. 

My joke bombed. It didn’t work.

Some ideas, it seems, work better in theory than in practice.

And in a semi-related note, ex-congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announced this week that she’s now selling her wares on Cameo, too. For the low-low price of $149, MTG will record a personal message for the Andrew Speno in your life.

🧐Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is now on Cameo where you can book her for the low low price of $150 pic.twitter.com/ECoGlAwHEy

— Benjamin S. Weiss (@BenjaminSWeiss) August 5, 2026

To help launch MTG’s exciting new career, here are a few topics/ideas for video requests:

Look, career transitions are fraught with peril. Not everyone makes it. 

Not even a super-genius like MTG.

Landing your dream job requires meticulous planning, hard work, a little luck, and a whole lot of strategy. (Especially in politics, where NOTHING moves until it’s actively pushed.)

Which is why it’s so strange when politicians pursue their dream job by doing the exact opposite of everything you’d expect.

And in a directly related note, Vice President JD Vance decided to fat-shame Fox News commentator Marc Thiessen:

I'm surprised to hear Mark say this. If you've ever met him in person, it's quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito. https://t.co/z4DjKLVZVs

— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 5, 2026

He hasn’t announced it yet, but Vance will be running for president in 2028. It’s a slam-dunk, ironclad guarantee: As the sitting vice president, he has the inside track for the Republican nomination. Whether you’re a JD lover or a JD hater, the nomination is his to lose. 

He’s the undisputed frontrunner. (At least, he was. More on that in just a sec.)

Question for the peanut gallery: If you were in Vance’s shoes, how would you unite the Republican Party and solidify the MAGA movement behind your 2028 candidacy?

Because a divided GOP would be politically disastrous; it’d guarantee a Vance defeat. (And thus, a Democrat victory.) It’s in Vance’s interests to inherit an intact MAGA movement — and a fully united GOP.

That way he could play offense instead of defense.

Which explains some of Vance’s tactical decisions, i.e., declining Ben Shapiro’s Turning Point request to condemn and ostracize high-profile, MAGA-adjacent personalities, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Steve Bannon: Everything else being equal, he’d rather inherit a MAGA movement that was big enough to include EVERYONE who pulled a lever for Donald Trump in 2024.

And why wouldn’t he? Addition by subtraction fails more than it works.

Had he stayed on the sidelines, Vance could’ve threaded the needle, kept his cards close to his vest, and been enough of a Rorschach inkblot that Republican hawks, doves, neocons, Groypers, traditional conservatives, religious conservatives, and isolationists saw whatever they wanted to see in him. It was a legitimate, viable PR strategy for a presidential frontrunner.

In fact, President Trump helped Vance by serving as his own attack dog, so the VP could keep his powder dry:

But Vance didn’t stay on the sidelines. Nor did he follow President Trump’s lead and attack the same people Trump attacked.

Instead, he attacked their enemies.

🚨MUST- WATCH: Vance is blaming Israel again on Joe Rogan, claiming that members of the Israeli government pay to activate a malicious campaign against him, and they can all “go to hell” pic.twitter.com/4McdHrADbW

— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) July 15, 2026

JD Vance on pro-Israel neocons reaction to the peace deal: “They are proposing an endless conflict. They want this to go on until every bomb has been dropped or every Iranian is dead.”https://t.co/gUW02jUl6u

— Haris Imamović (@SkenderVakuf) June 16, 2026

Meanwhile, everyone else got a pass. Vance won’t say a single bad word about ’em.

Vance will drop bombs on Marc Thiessen’s waistline, yet ignore the just-as-fleshy Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Alex Jones. He’ll go scorched earth on the neocons (Boo!), while ignoring the sins, smears, and slurs of the isolationists and Groypers (Yay!).

As a result, JD Vance has become the most controversial vice president in decades. Even milquetoast Mike Pence was better received by the GOP base. (Pence didn’t become controversial ’til the very end of Trump’s first term.)

And now it’s imperiling his status as frontrunner:

2028 Republican Presidential Primary

🟥JD Vance 39% (-13)
🟥Marco Rubio 38% (+29)
🟥Ron DeSantis 5% (-2)
🟥Donald Trump Jr 5%

(+/- vs Aug. ‘25)

Emerson poll | 7/19-7/20 pic.twitter.com/bcMs28dHoT

— OSZ (@OpenSourceZone) July 23, 2026

It’s gotten so bad, Vance’s supporters are claiming there’s a “coordinated” effort to “poison” his future.

JD Vance Allies Fear 'Coordinated' Effort Within GOP to 'Poison' His Political Future https://t.co/p3bTYnlJ0U

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) July 24, 2026

As JD Vance prepares to make a decision about his 2028 plans, the vice president is facing a barrage of online attacks from within his party, criticism his allies say appears to be part of a coordinated attempt to poison the well for him politically. https://t.co/qPln4xAje5

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 24, 2026

But I don’t think there's anything “coordinated” about it. I suspect 99.9% of Republicans really, truly hoped JD Vance would be the future of the party — our successor to Donald Trump — and all this blowback is a byproduct of his one-sided interjections in GOP turf wars. It’s less a coordinate campaign than a spontaneous expression of fear and disappointment.

Because the Rorschach inkblot PR strategy doesn’t work when you feed breadcrumbs to one side — and throw daggers at the other.

Instead, it completely backfires, because the people receiving the daggers will assume the worst: You’re not being honest about who you are, and once you’re in power, you’ll be even MORE horrible to us.

Which is why millions of Trump-supporting Republicans have cooled on Vance. They’re suspicious of his motives. They see how much he echoes Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massie, Joe Kent, and MTG. They’ve noticed whom he attacks — and whom he excuses. 

And now they’re interpreting his refusal to condemn the isolationists/Groypers/antisemites as a de facto endorsement of their ideology.

Is that fair? Maybe, maybe not. 

It could be that Vance and Trump are playing good cop, bad cop: Trump reins in the isolationists/Groypers; Vance reins in the neocons/pro-Israel hawks. Maybe it’s an orchestrated PR plan.

(I doubt it, though.)

It could also be that Vance sees different risk factors in the two groups. Perhaps he knows that the neocons are basically stuck in the GOP — and let’s face it, if you’re a pro-Israel voter, you won’t join the same party as Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, and Hasan Piker. So neither group has anywhere else to go.

But the isolationists and Groypers do.

If you subscribe to the horseshoe theory — and I certainly do — then you believe the radical left and the woke right are closer to each other than anyone else. As such, if you push ‘em away, they could find common cause with the other party. Unlike pro-Israel voters, they DO have somewhere else to go.

Plus, they’re much more likely to support a third-party challenger who cannibalizes GOP votes. 

Why?

With extremism comes passion. A Carlson-backed (and/or Qatar-funded) candidate would attract grassroots excitement, a huge social media following, and oodles of attention. And since Carlson’s wing is convinced that AIPAC, Israel, and “Jewish money” control America, they WANT to tear down our political system. For them, it’s a feature, not a bug.

Even if it means the Democrats win by a landslide in 2028.

Because then they’d have an excuse to destroy, dismantle, and rebuild the Republican Party in their own image. Losing in 2028 would be a means to an end — and then a new beginning.

So maybe Vance is exactly right in using kid-gloves on the Horseshoe Right. Just this week, Carlson, MTG, Massie, and Kent discussed launching a third party.

POLITICO: Anti-Trump conservatives Tucker Carlson, MTG, Massie & Joe Kent discuss starting a third-party movement.

MTG - “We said no more foreign wars and we meant it and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise. But he’s betrayed us all”

Joe Kent said every… pic.twitter.com/196jsyHCpz

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) August 5, 2026

But now that Trump’s enemies are openly plotting a third-party challenge, will Vance FINALLY say something critical about Carlson and company? Will he FINALLY treat them with the same disdain he’s bestowed upon the (still loyal) neocons, hawks, and pro-Israel conservatives?

Or will he continue to treat his allies worse than his enemies?

Because, if the vice president isn’t careful, a second PR narrative will emerge: JD Vance is a moral coward and an appeaser.

He favored appeasing Iran. (Didn’t work.) He enthusiastically pushed an absurdly pro-Iran “memorandum of understanding.” (Didn’t work.) He sought peace by lambasting Israel, traditional conservatives, hawks, and neocons. (Didn’t work.)

Nor did his appeasement of Carlson: The ex-Fox News host just moved forward with his third-party threat, unveiling his 10-point political manifesto on Wednesday. 

Yet again, appeasement failed.

But Vance’s PR war against those nasty, evil, pro-Israel “neocons” continues. It’s his north star; his guiding principle. 

Even though it’s a political dead end.

If Vance wants to unite the Republican Party, he needs to start fighting for us ASAP — and stop fighting against us!

Otherwise, instead of being MAGA’s future, he’ll be our funeral. Because the more he appeases Carlson, the more emboldened Carlson becomes.

(Remind you of Iran?)

Marc Thiessen tweets about burritos (!) and Vance comes after him with a sledgehammer. Carlson uploads video after video, calling President Trump an Israeli slave, weak and demonic, and saying he has “betrayed America” and he’s the (possible) Antichrist — yet Vance says nothing. Not a word, not a protest, not a peep.

Pretty weird, huh?

It’s a violation of rule #34 of Morton Blackwell’s Laws of the Public Policy Process: “You cannot make friends of your enemies by making enemies of your friends.”

Vance is running like an insurgent instead of the frontrunner. That’s a yuuuge tactical mistake. Furthermore, the Rorschach inkblot PR strategy is now out the window: There’s been too much bad blood.

It’s time for Vance to make a PR pivot: He must unite the Republican Party by finding common ground — and solidify MAGA support by fighting the wars we can’t win on our own.

I hope he can, and I hope he means it. I hope his reluctance was rooted in pragmatism and not ideology.

Because, if he can’t unify the party, he’ll be out of work on Jan. 20, 2029. And then the Democrats will control the White House — plus probably Congress.

Oh well. I hear Cameo is hiring. Maybe Vance will collaborate with MTG on a super-cool video?

Just remember to speak clearly.

One Last Thing: 2026 will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the future of our country teeters in the balance.

Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Blue wave or red wall, one way or another the 2026 midterms will transform our country.

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