JD Vance Reaches New Level Of Weird In Embarrassing Fight With Former Teen USA Contestant

JD Vance continues bringing the weird to the 2024 presidential campaign — the weird and the offensive, to be more exact. The latest target caught in Vance's crosshairs is former Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlyn Upton, and his bizarre attack on her has turned into an even more embarrassing, and entirely one-sided, fight from which Vance refuses to back down. On August 29, 2024, the Ohio senator posted a video of Upton on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant captioned: "I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview." 

BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview. pic.twitter.com/c6nfcJrFJy

— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 29, 2024

In the clip, Upton is asked why she thinks "a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map." Clearly flustered, she gives a rambling and incoherent answer as Mario Lopez, holding the mic, visibly suppresses a laugh. The moment went viral, resulting in Upton later confessing to suffering from suicidal ideation. "I had some very dark moments," she admitted to New York magazine in December 2015.

Unsurprisingly, the former pageant contestant was devastated when the video resurfaced. "It's a shame that 17 years later this is still being brought up," she wrote on X, seemingly before deleting her account while also calling for an end to online bullying (via Newsweek). Meanwhile, Vance refused to apologize and hasn't taken down the tweet at the time of writing. "I think the best way to deal with it is to laugh at ourselves, laugh at this stuff," he argued in an interview with CNN. "And try to have some fun in politics."

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JD Vance's refusal to apologize for picking on Caitlyn Upton almost 20 years after she initially went viral should come as no surprise. As the 2024 presidential race heats up, he continues to embarrass the GOP, and Vance has admitted that even Donald Trump doesn't want to be seen with him, which says a lot. "[Trump] said, basically, 'I trust you. We should both be in different places, unless it's a really big event [...] Divide and conquer,'" Vance informed NBC News. But then again, the presidential hopeful infamously supported calls to hang his last VP, so it's probably for the best.

Vance and Trump's relationship is complicated, to say the least. Given his past comments, many were surprised when the Ohio senator was picked as Trump's running mate. Vance once branded the controversial politician "America's Hitler" and claimed he was a "moral disaster," (via CNN). However, he's performed a sharp U-turn, proving that one should never let beliefs and values get in the way of self-promotion and personal enrichment. Since accepting the nomination, Vance has been a tireless defender of his boss, even when it comes to the indefensible — such as Trump's Arlington National Cemetery fiasco. 

The former president was widely criticized for taking grinning, thumbs-up photos in front of veterans' graves, embarking on a promotional video shoot and jostling with a female employee. Vance did a classic lie and decry during a subsequent speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, falsely accusing Kamala Harris of "[yelling] at Donald Trump because he showed up" and declaring, "She can go to hell!" (via YouTube). Still, at least Vance's eyeliner was on point as always.