Vice President J.D. Vance has repeatedly battled the corporate media in adversarial settings, pushing back aggressively against their narrative in heated exchanges.
Vance willingly entered the lion’s den throughout the 2024 election and as vice president, where members of the corporate media would often try to corner him on the positions and policies of President Donald Trump’s administration. Conservatives widely praised him for countering left-wing narratives.
‘I don’t really care, Margaret’: Vance clashes with Margaret Brennan over illegal immigration
CBS News host Margaret Brennan claimed during a Jan. 26 episode of “Face the Nation” that 30,000 Afghans had been properly vetted in the U.S., despite there being a properly vetted Afghan national who plotted a terrorist attack in Oklahoma in November 2024.
“My primary concern as the vice president, Margaret, is to look after the American people. And now that we know that we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country,” Vance said.
“These people are vetted,” Brennan said.
“Just like the guy who played a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago, he was allegedly properly vetted. And many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted. Clearly, he wasn’t. I don’t want my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted. And because I don’t want it for my kids, I’m not going to force any other American citizens kids to do that either.”
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Brennan argued that it had not been clear whether the suspect was “radicalized” before or after he arrived in the U.S.
“I don’t really care, Margaret,” Vance replied. “I don’t want that person in my country. And I think most Americans agree with me.”
The suspect in question was Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, who entered the U.S. on humanitarian parole in 2021 and was arrested for allegedly planning a terror attack on Election Day in 2024. More recently, an Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal was charged with shooting two National Guardsmen at the Farragut West metro station in Washington, D.C., in November. He entered the U.S. under former President Joe Biden’s administration and was granted asylum in early 2025 under the Trump administration.
Vance accuses Dana Bash of double standard between interviewing him and Democrats
During the 2024 election cycle, Vance accused CNN’s Dana Bash of imposing a double standard on how she interviews him versus then-Vice President Kamala Harris and her former running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Bash questioned Vance on the allegations that Haitians were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, which many had claimed was a conspiracy theory.
“Dana, would you like to ask me questions and then let me answer them or would you like to debate me on these topics? I noticed that when you had Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, you gave them multiple choice answers to the questions that you asked and you allowed them to answer the questions. I’m happy to be here to talk about policy, but if you’re going to interrupt me every single time I open my mouth, then why am I even doing this? So please, ask a question and I ask that you be polite enough to let me answer it,” Vance said.
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Vance turns tables on Vanity Fair story alleging official called him ‘conspiracy theorist’
Vanity Fair published a report on Dec.16 alleging that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles referred to Vance as a “conspiracy theorist.” When a reporter with The Washington Post asked Vance for a response during an event on Dec. 16, he stated that he only believed in conspiracies that were true.
“Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true. And by the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we should actually let them develop some language skills. I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job.”
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Vance calls out Politico reporter’s ‘journalistic malpractice’ over story about special envoy Steve Witkoff
In August, Vance harshly criticized Politico diplomatic correspondent Felicia Schwartz’s report about special envoy Steve Witkoff, in which she cited anonymous sources, trimmed down Vance’s quote and did not include comment from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it’s more than that: it’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members. Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it’s two or three deep staters who are angry that Witkoff has succeeded where they’ve failed,” Vance wrote on X. “You know what this ‘reporter’ left out to make room for anonymous quotes? The full quote from the sitting vice president, on the record. A quote from the secretary of the state, on the record. A quote from Jared Kushner, on the record.”
This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice. But it’s more than that: it’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members.
Notice how all of the people attacking Steve are on background? That means it’s two or three… https://t.co/LsPmTpZfqy
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 29, 2025
Vance fires back at liberal influencer accusing him of ‘war crime’
Liberal influencer Brian Krassenstein accused the administration of committing a “war crime” for launching air strikes at Venezuelan ships believed to be shipping illegal drugs to the U.S. Vance doubled down on the administration’s actions, saying that killing cartel members putting Americans in danger is the “highest and best use of our military.”
“Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” Krassenstein said in a Sept. 6 post on X.
“I don’t give a shit what you call it,” Vance replied.
I don’t give a shit what you call it
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 6, 2025
Trump authorized striking several Venezuelan ships that were said to be carrying drugs and drug traffickers. The administration has yet to provide credible evidence that these ships truly carried illegal drugs or were run by narcoterrorists, including members of Tren de Agua.
Vance scoffs at ABC host’s priorities amid government shutdown
While the longest government shutdown in history continued on, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Vance about reports that alleged border czar Tom Homan accepted $50,000 in cash from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in 2024 during an Oct. 12 interview on “This Week.” Vance also hit back at Stephanopoulos for focusing on a report about Homan rather than focusing on what truly mattered to the American people.
“Here’s, George, why fewer and fewer people watch your program and why you’re losing credibility: because you’re talking — for now five minutes — with the vice president of the United States about this story regarding Tom Homan, a story that I’ve read about, but I don’t even know the video that you’re talking about,” Vance said. “Meanwhile, low-income women can’t get food because the Democrats and Chuck Schumer have shut down the government. Right now, we’re trying to figure out how to pay our troops because Chuck Schumer has shut the government. You are focused on a bogus story.”
“You’re insinuating criminal wrongdoing against a guy who has done nothing wrong instead of focusing on the fact that our country is struggling because our government’s shut down. Let’s talk about the real issues, George,” the vice president continued.
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Vance doesn’t let host get away with attempted gotcha question
The vice president shut down NBC News’ Kristen Welker’s attempted gotcha question about gerrymandering in Texas.
“If President Trump’s agenda is so popular, why do Republicans need to add additional seats to the map?” Welker asked during an Aug. 24 segment of “Meet the Press.”
“First of all, Kristen, you have to ask yourself why have Democrats gerrymandered their states aggressively in the past ten to 20 years,” Vance said. “If you look, for example, at the popular vote in a lot of these states, in Massachusetts, where 32% of the residents of Massachusetts voted for Republicans, zero Republican federal representatives.”
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The Texas Legislature redrew the congressional map to help Republicans gain more seats in the House, which caused outraged Democrats to flee the state in retaliation. After a contentious legal battle, the Supreme Court gave Texas the green light to go forth with the map.
Vance turns tables on reporter trying to grill him on Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims
During an appearance on “The Interview” on Oct. 12, 2024, The New York Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro attempted to grill Vance on whether he believed that President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In response, Vance fired back at her for not acknowledging that big technology companies censored the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop just weeks before the 2020 election.
“Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” Garcia-Navarro asked.
“Did big technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost Trump millions of votes? I think that’s the question … But you’re repeating a slogan rather than engaging with what I’m saying, which is that when our own technology firms engage in industrial-scale censorship — by the way, backed up by the federal government — in a way that independent studies suggest affects the votes,” Vance said. “I’m worried about Americans who feel like there were problems in 2020. I’m not worried about this slogan that people throw: Well, every court case went this way. I’m talking about something very discreet, a problem of censorship in this country that I do think affected things in 2020.
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Twitter suspended accounts belonging to the New York Post and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in October 2020 for posting the outlet’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, claiming that it violated its “hacked materials” policy. Later, the Daily Caller News Foundation, The Washington Post and The New York Times all independently verified that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden and that at least some of the contents were authentic.
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