JD Vance Shrugs Off Critics' Favorite New Insult

Democrats have been tossing around a new insult of late against the ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance—"weird"—and Vance tells Fox News he's not bothered by it.

• "I think that it's a lot of projection, frankly ... from people who want to give transgender hormones to 9-year-old kids and want biological males to play in women's sports," said the Ohio senator. "Look, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm happily married, and I love my life. And I'm doing this because I want to be a good public servant who fixes the problems of the Democrats. They can call me whatever they want to. The middle school taunts don't bother me."

• Slam origins: NBC News thinks the "weird" line of attack began with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on a Morning Joe appearance in July. "We do not like what has happened, where we can't even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary," said Walz, who remains on the short list to be Kamala Harris' running mate. "Well, it's true. These guys are just weird."
• Spreading: The Walz clip went viral, notes Politico. Walz himself began amplifying the theme, as did lots of others, including the Harris campaign—even referring to Trump in a fundraising email as "old and quite weird," per the Hill. It "marks a notable rhetorical shift—away from [President] Biden's apocalyptic, high-minded messaging toward a more gut-level vernacular that may better capture how many voters react to far-right rhetoric of the kind Vance in particular trades in," write Eli Stokols and Elena Schneider of Politico.
• Trump: The former president also responded to the slam. "They're the weird ones," he told conservative radio host Clay Travis, per the New Republic. "Nobody's ever called me weird. I'm a lot of things, but weird I'm not. And I'm upfront. And he's not, either, I will tell you. JD is not at all. They are," Trump said. Still, Rolling Stone reports the former president is "increasingly furious" at how widespread the new messaging has become, perhaps because, as CNN reports, polls suggest the attack is resonating. Google searches for the word "weird," for example, are up significantly.
• A criticism: Lots of pundits think the line of attack is working for Democrats—it "feels both pretty dang mild and supremely satisfying," writes Jessica Bennett in the New York Times—but Eric Schwitzgebel wonders in the Los Angeles Times whether liberals ought to be borrowing a term that has long been used to ridicule children and adults alike who don't conform to society's norms.

(More JD Vance stories.)