Trump Allies Say They Know the Petty Source of the J.D. Vance Leaks

As reports emerge suggesting some Trump allies regret Republican vice presidential pick J.D. Vance, who has made an abysmal first impression in the public eye, many in the campaign suspect former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway of maligning Vance to the media.

The Bulwark reports that over a dozen “​​Trump campaign staffers, allies, confidants, and advisers” said, without being prompted, that they thought Conway “was undermining him through leaks to the press expressing doubts about his readiness and the campaign’s vetting.”

“He’s pissed off about it. He knows it’s her,” a source close to Donald Trump Jr. told the center-right news site.

Conway was rumored to be a “serial leaker” during Trump’s presidency, and, as his “veepstakes” were underway, she opposed Vance. The New York Times reports that, as the Ohio senator emerged as the favorite, Conway “argued privately” for “other options,” like Marco Rubio.

Maintaining her loyalty and close relationship to the former president, Conway called her accusers “gossip girls” and “ankle biters,” telling The Bulwark that she did favor Rubio but is “not anti-Vance.” A member of the Trump family reportedly said, “The family in general thinks very highly” of her.

When the Republican “veepstakes” were still underway, Conway told CNN that Trump should choose somebody who would not be “a distraction or subtraction,” saying he “should not be made to explain other people’s scandals or statements.” Whatever their thoughts of Conway, such advice is surely ringing in the ears of Trump and his allies as they are having to do just that.

J.D. Vance got slammed by X users after accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of being fake.

“Kamala Harris is a phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her,” Vance said, during a rally speech in Glendale, Arizona, Wednesday night.

“She went down to Georgia and started with a fake Southern accent. I’m serious, now, what the hell was all that about? Kamala Harris grew up in Canada! They don’t talk like that in Vancouver or Quebec or wherever she came from,” Vance said.

The line of argument seemed like a weak chaser for Donald Trump’s shot at Harris earlier that day, questioning his opponent’s Blackness in a room full of Black journalists.

Of course, from someone like Vance, with his history of stretching the truth and making flip-flopping statements, no one on the internet was buying it.

There were the easy hits, about Vance’s ever-changing name and where he grew up.

Vance has seemingly changed his name a few times, from James Donald Bowman, to James David Hamel, and finally to Vance around 2013, according to Vanity Fair.

As for the Ohio senator’s supposed Appalachian roots—which he capitalized on in his bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy—where he grew up in Middletown, Ohio, is not within the Appalachian region defined by Congress.

But then, there’s the more pressing stuff, like what Vance purports to actually believe. Vance went from being a self-proclaimed “never-Trump guy,” to being Trump’s running mate, in just a few years.

In an attempt to appeal to Trump voters, it seems that Vance is already capturing the very essence of Trump, who rarely casts an accusation that’s not also an admission.

Republicans are freaking out after Donald Trump questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s race on Wednesday.

At the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Trump claimed that Harris chose to suddenly “turn” Black.

“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said, responding to a question on the right calling her a “DEI hire.” “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black.

“I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump asked, and then said, “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went—she became a Black person.”

According to Axios, several Republicans think Trump’s words were crazy.

“It was awful,” one House Republican told the publication. They said it called into question if Trump can control his words against the first woman, Black, and Asian American vice president.

“Maybe they don’t know how to handle the campaign, and so you default to issues that just should simply not be an issue,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski. She pointed out that it’s only the latest misstep by the Trump campaign.

“Childless cat women, DEI candidates; now, ‘Is she Black? Is she Indian?’” Murkowski said.

Another House Republican said, “That was not a demonstration on how to win over undecided voters.”

Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan called out Trump’s comments on X (formerly Twitter) without mentioning him by name.

Several Republicans, including one senator who usually doesn’t shy from such discussions, thought the focus should be on Harris’s policies.

“I ain’t getting involved in that,” said Tommy Tuberville. “Let him talk about what he wants to talk about. I’m talking about how bad our country is in shape right now because of her.”

“I think the better approach is to focus on [the] policies of Kamala Harris.… That’s what I’ve been talking about,” said Senator Steve Daines, the Senate GOP’s campaign chief.

Trump made a number of unwise comments at the NABJ convention Wednesday, including his comments on Harris’s race and cognitive health, his use of the term “Black jobs,” or his vow to pardon January 6 rioters. Strangely, he thinks he nailed his appearance there, perhaps further evidence of his own cognitive decline.

After getting booed, laughed at, and fact-checked, Donald Trump decided he had had enough of his Wednesday interview and left early. 

At a National Association of Black Journalists event in Chicago, the former president was slated to speak for an hour. Despite starting more than an hour late, allegedly due to technical difficulties, moderators began the discussion with Trump by thanking him for agreeing to still speak for the full hour. 

Their thanks were premature, however, as Trump only spoke for 34 minutes. Moderator Rachel Scott indicated that Trump’s team cut things off. 

The awkward affair was riddled with tense moments and shouts from the audience. Throughout the interview, Scott and fellow moderator Kadia Goba displayed  incredible professionalism—and Trump, of course, showed none. 

The Republican presidential candidate spent his time interrupting people, questioning Kamala Harris’s Blackness, trying and failing to explain what “Black jobs” are, and promising to pardon January 6 rioters. 

Immediately following the event, Trump took to TruthSocial to gloat about his performance and complain about the event overall. “The questions were Rude and Nasty, often in the form of a statement,” he wrote. 

Despite his poor performance and early exit, Trump said he “CRUSHED IT!” 

Donald Trump’s social media venture is losing users every month, hurting his bottom line and possibly showing that his rhetoric is losing appeal even among his own base.

The Guardian spoke to a right-wing media analyst, Howard Polskin, who said that Truth Social had only 2.11 million unique users in June, a decline of 38 percent from one year ago.

“The diminishing audience levels for Truth Social suggest a rejection of the harsh rhetoric expressed by the ex-president and his political allies that is one of the hallmarks of the two-year-old platform,” Ploskin said.

Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of Truth Social, had experienced a jump in its stock price of $46 per share after a gunman tried to kill Trump earlier this month. But those gains appear to have been short-lived, as the stock dropped to about $29 per share Wednesday. Both numbers are nowhere near the peak price this year, which was close to $72 per share in March after its initial public offering.

The venture was supposed to be Trump’s cash cow, as the former president and convicted felon owns 60 percent of the company. But a series of setbacks since launching have ruined Trump’s financial fail-safe. The company had a net loss of $58.2 million in 2023, numbers that had to be reaudited after its accounting firm was charged with “massive fraud” and subsequently barred from ever serving as accountants again. The company lost an astonishing $327.6 million last quarter, only bringing in $770,500 in revenue.

Trump can’t brag his way out of Trump Media’s declining stock value, as pumping up the stock is illegal. He can’t try to dump the stock until September without board approval, either, and while he’s been given a reprieve from his legal cases by the Supreme Court, he still has legal bills to pay. But all he can do is watch Trump Media’s stock price continue to go nowhere, or come up with another grift with which he can fleece his supporters.

Donald Trump doubled down on a frightening campaign promise Wednesday.

While at the National Association of Black Journalists’ conference in Chicago, Trump was asked if he would pardon rioters who assaulted police officers during the January 6 insurrection.

“Oh, absolutely I would,” Trump replied while interrupting the moderators. “If they are innocent, I would pardon them.”

“They’ve been convicted,” Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News, quickly clarified, to which the crowd interrupted in laughter.

Trump previously has called the violent insurrectionists “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots.” He has promised several times over to “free” the rioters, despite saying on the day after the Capitol attack that “those who broke the law” would “pay.”

But he changed tune just a year later. “We’ll be looking very, very seriously at full pardons,” Trump said in 2022. “I mean full pardons with an apology to many.”

At Wednesday’s event, Trump tried to redirect the conversation to left-wing rioters in Minneapolis and Seattle while justifying the violence of January 6. When pressed by Scott about the acts of individuals pummeling police officers in what was likely the largest single-day assault on law enforcement, Trump justified the insurrectionists’ actions by simply saying the officers “shot a young lady in the face.”

Donald Trump made an outlandish claim Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris had failed the bar exam, while challenging her to take a cognitive test.

During an interview at the convention for the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump responded to a question from Semafor’s political reporter Kadia Goba, who asked if he would be willing to take a cognitive exam.

“I would love to do it,” Trump said, brushing past Goba’s follow-up about releasing the results. Instead, Trump said he had pushed to take a cognitive test with Joe Biden, and said the same offer applied to his new, far younger opponent.

“I would do it with her also. You know what? She failed her law exam, she didn’t pass her law exam, so maybe she wouldn’t pass the cognitive test,” Trump said shrugging.

The audience instantly burst into noisy chatter. “Oh—” someone said into the microphone, cringing at the outrageous claim. Another person went “pfft” into the microphone.

“Are you saying she wouldn’t pass?” asked ABC News’s senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, whom Trump repeatedly scolded throughout the interview.

“I’m just giving you the facts,” Trump insisted. “She didn’t pass her bar exam. And she didn’t think she would pass it, and she didn’t think she was gonna ever pass it. And I don’t know what happened, maybe she passed it.”

Scott asserted, as the president spoke over her, that Harris had, of course, passed the bar. That much can be assumed from someone who served as the Los Angeles County district attorney and attorney general of California.

Donald Trump addressed a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists Wednesday where he was asked to explain his earlier words about “Black jobs.” His answer didn’t clear anything up.

Trump was initially asked by Fox News’s Harris Faulkner, who sat on the panel along with Rachel Scott of ABC News and Kadia Goba of Semafor, what his message was at the event. He began by talking about the so-called crisis at the U.S. southern border.

“A lot of the journalists in this room I know and I have great respect for, a lot of the journalists in this room are Black,” Trump said, drawing laughter from the audience. “I will tell you that coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.”

“What exactly is a Black job, sir?” Scott asked him.

“A Black job is anybody that has a job. That’s what it is. Anybody that has a job,” Trump said to more laughter from the audience. “They’re taking the employment away from Black people.”

Trump initially used the phrase during the first presidential debate in June and was heavily criticized, with many people asking what a “Black job” is and what he meant. Several Black politicians posted on social media at the time highlighting their work.

Given an opportunity by Black journalists with a largely Black audience Wednesday, Trump didn’t clarify anything. His campaign has made repeated efforts to draw in Black voters, only for those efforts to seemingly fail “bigly,” according to recent polls. This is partly because Trump’s campaign has also included some not-so-subtle racist messages, including his vow to fight “anti-white” racism, his pledge to “indemnify all police officers and law enforcement officials” if he’s reelected, his attacks on Black prosecutors, and his defense of “very fine” neo-Nazis.

Even before he entered politics, Trump didn’t have a good record on race. He and his father were sued for housing discrimination back in the 1970s, and while he hosted NBC’s The Apprentice, he allegedly dropped the n-word and refused to hire Kwame Jackson, the Black finalist on the show’s first season. However Trump’s appearance at the NABJ’s convention Wednesday was going to go, it could never have erased his racist past.

The United Auto Workers announced Wednesday that their union would endorse Kamala Harris for president.

The union’s executive board came to the decision because of “the Biden-Harris administration’s proven track record of standing with the UAW and delivering major gains for the working class,” according to a press release from the union.

“Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in the statement. “We stand at a crossroads in this country. We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed.”

Following President Joe Biden’s endorsement of Harris, many unions, including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, or IBEW, and the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, rushed to back Harris. But the UAW held off.

Fain even took heat when he appeared on MSNBC to say his union was “not going to rush” its Harris endorsement without the approval of the union members. The union had previously endorsed Biden in January.

In the UAW’s announcement, the union cited Harris’s commitment to workers on the picket line and in her voting records. “Kamala Harris walked the picket line with striking autoworkers in 2019, has taken on corporate price-gouging and profiteering, and has spoken out and voted against unfair trade deals that hurt the American worker like NAFTA and NAFTA 2.0, the USMCA,” the statement said.

Harris will head to Detroit on August 7 to rally with UAW members and Michigan voters. During that time, she will also meet directly with union members about the issues facing Michigan workers.

“This campaign is bringing together people from all walks of life, building a movement that can defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box,” said Fain. “For our one million active and retired members, the choice is clear: We will elect Kamala Harris to be our next President this November.”

Former President Donald Trump suggested Vice President Kamala Harris had suddenly turned Black, during an interview Wednesday at a convention for the National Association of Black Journalists.

Trump appeared onstage more than an hour late to take part in a conversation conducted by ABC News’s senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, and Semafor’s political reporter Kadia Goba.

Scott didn’t hold back when it came to asking Trump about his party’s attacks on Harris as a “DEI” candidate. “Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman?” Scott asked.

“Well, I can say no, I think it’s maybe a little bit different,” Trump said. “I’ve known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage. And she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black.”

“So I don’t know, is she Indian, or is she Black?” Trump asked, noting that he’d respect “either one.”

“She was Indian all the way, and then suddenly she made a turn and she became a Black person,” he said. The audience let out a collective gasp and incredulous laughs. He went on to criticize Scott for her “hostile, nasty tone,” before turning his attention to fawn over Faulkner.

As the interview proceeded, Trump was simultaneously fact-checked online in collaboration with Politifact. The slogan of the weekend’s convention was “Winds of Change: Journalism Over Disinformation.”

Before the interview started, Trump posted on Truth Social, whining that he had to attend the event in Chicago, while Harris had opted to attend virtually.

“They told me and Crazy Kamala Harris that you could not do this Event with ZOOM—It is not allowed or acceptable! She declined, and I am getting ready to land in Chicago in order to be there. Now I am told that she is doing the Event on ZOOM,” Trump wrote. “WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?”