Vice President JD Vance was allegedly caught issuing a chilling threat just moments before Donald Trump’s address to Congress, according to a lip-reading expert. Despite being a stern critic of the president in the past, Vance has now become one of his most ardent supporters.
During the 2016 presidential election, he expressed negative views on Trump, comparing him to Nixon and even Hitler. But his views have had a huge U-turn and he is now fully behind the billionaire. And now, while joking with House Speaker Mike Johnson ahead of the 47th president’s contentious speech, Vance seemed to hint at “a full reckoning” with Trump’s antagonists.
Lip-reading specialist Jeremy Freeman claims that Vance privately stated: “Yes it is, a full reckoning, and long overdue.”
Vance also reportedly told Johnson: “By the way, I think the speech is going to be great. But I don’t know how you do this for 90 minutes.”
Johnson appeared to lower the microphone, seemingly wanting their conversation to remain private, before replying: “The hardest thing was doing it during Biden, when his speech was a stupid campaign speech.”
It remains unclear who or what Vance is threatening with a “full reckoning”. But the comments were made just days after his heated exchange with Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
And it’s not only the leader of the war-stricken country that has recently faced Vance’s ire. He drew criticism this week for referring to Britain as a “random country”.
Vance, who ascended to the role of US Senator in 2022, has defended Trump against his critics, attributing the failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last July to them. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” he posted on Twitter shortly after the shooting incident.
“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Trump’s speech, where he lambasted his predecessor Joe Biden as “the worst president in American history”, was met with enthusiastic applause from his supporters.
In contrast, Democrats present in the room remained expressionless, with some holding up placards signs expressing their belief that Trump was favouring his billionaire friends with tax breaks at the expense of working-class families.
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkle said: “We cannot have business as usual while Trump and his unelected billionaire co-president Elon Musk are gutting many parts of the government that help working families thrive.
“The President tonight had the chance to change course, but instead, he came before the American people and doubled down on reckless plans to dismantle key federal agencies, disregard our laws, and dishonor our Constitution.”
