J.D. Vance attempted to mock Thursday night’s CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Thursday via X. Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate shared a clip from the 2007 Miss Teen USA contest that featured an infamous interview with then-Miss South Carolina, Caite Upton, who delivered a meandering response that made her an online meme. Vance posted it with the quip, “BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview.”
The vice president’s answers that were released in early footage and coverage by CNN did not seem to meander in a style similar to the South Carolina beauty queen’s answer and appeared to be regarded by most observers as coherent answers to the interviewers’ questions. The post from Vance was quickly derided by numerous X users as misogynistic, including podcast host Akilah Hughes, who wrote, “Soooo making fun of young women is now the strategy? They’re going for historic loss, people.”
In the beauty pageant clip, Upton said that the reason a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map is that “some Americans don’t have maps.” She also used the term “U.S. Americans” to describe one of the groups she was talking about.
Keith Olbermann chimed in, “You know, Jayvee, if you’re this desperate to lose the election, you can withdraw or fake an illness or flee the country. You don’t have to self-defenestrate EVERY F–KING DAY.”
Author John Pavlovitz added a reference to Robert F. Kennedy and his recent Trump endorsement, writing, “You are the least-liked VP candidate in history, you’re an albatross to Trump, and you’re being replaced by a guy with a brain worm. Keep it up.”
A woman who tweets as @A_tothe_Z_Amber wrote, “Using a woman to mock another while making fun of her is on brand for you. Good to see you’ve figured out most women can’t stand you and to just go for it.”
As Brett Meiselas, cofounder of the liberal MediasTouch media watchdog, summed it up, “Tell me you hate women without telling me you hate women.”
Beauty queen Upton, who has since shared that she contemplated committing suicide after the clip went viral several times, spoke with pageant host Mario Lopez about the moment on “Access Hollywood.”
“I wanted you to just know that I was there wanting to help you and I think you’ve handled it just so so beautifully,” Lopez told Upton.
Since her appearance in the pageant, Upton has worked as a model for Wrangler, appeared in several magazines and was even signed to Donald Trump’s modeling agency in New York. She also appeared in the music video for the Weezer song “Pork and Beans” and on the competition game show “The Amazing Race” in 2010.
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