The Drama With JD Vance's Financial Policy Advisor, Explained

JD Vance's run for the White House as Donald Trump's running mate hasn't exactly been smooth sailing since he was first officially added to Trump's ticket in July 2024. He's been hounded by verbal gaffes and awkward moments, and now old Reddit posts shared by his own financial policy advisor, Aaron Kofsky, have resurfaced, which are causing Vance even more of a headache as he navigates an embarrassing exposé of one of his top staffers.

As discovered in an investigation by Wired, it turns out that Kofsky has had a long history of sharing personal and problematic anecdotes to Reddit over the past several years — many of which made references to his addiction to cocaine and opiates — under the username PsychoMammal. The posts, which were made as recently as three months ago, were linked to Kofsky based on personal details he shared on Reddit that matched up to his public record and personal social media accounts.

Kofsky has been advising Vance since May, and has been working in Vance's U.S. Senate office since March 2023. Prior to that, Kofsky was working as a policy advisor for Securities and Exchange Commissioner Mark Uyeda, and for the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee since 2022. All throughout this time, he was secretly posting to Reddit about his addictions and leveling insults directed at Vance, under the veil of his supposedly anonymous Reddit username.

In May 2022, according to Wired, Aaron Kofsky took to a subreddit focused on narcotics and shared his advice for smuggling cocaine through airport security when flying on domestic flights. He suggested hiding the drugs in a wallet or inside a book, claiming that the scanners wouldn't recognize the material and stating that he's "never had an issue" when employing this tactic. This is just one of numerous posts about his use of and addiction to drugs — including cocaine and tianeptine.

Under his PsychoMammal username, Kofsky also posted a video showing Vance and himself at a Senate hearing in which Vance mentioned a somewhat obscure form of opioid known as nitazene. PsychoMammal commented under the post, "I just can't believe that this Trump boot licker Vance is ahead of the curve here." The remarks insulting his own boss, and the glorification of his drug abuse come in stark and embarrassing contrast to Vance's hardline anti-drug stance and outspoken position on increased penalties for drug dealers and smugglers.

Wired reports that after they contacted Kofsky to ask about his posts, many of them were quickly deleted and efforts were made to obscure potential connections between himself as the PsychoMammal username. However, Kofsky subsequently released a statement via a spokesperson, sharing, "Like millions of Americans, I've struggled with drug use, which in my case was mostly an attempt to self medicate ... I deeply regret posting these comments. I'm not proud of this and I'm embarrassed it's being publicized in this way, but I am thankful to say that part of my life is behind me." Vance has not yet publicly commented on the resurfaced Reddit posts.