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JD Vance smacks down ‘whiny’ Dem lawmaker over rehired DOGE staffer

February 8, 2025 | | Print Article

Invoking their own children saw a congressman slammed as “whiny” by the vice president who brought the heat over an attempted cancelation of a DOGE employee.

“You disgust me.”

Establishment damage control was underway in the D.C. swamp thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to expose the vast spiderweb of waste. While DOGE head Elon Musk had agreed to restore member Marko Elez after a Wall Street Journal reporter had prompted his resignation — carting out old social media posts — Vice President J.D. Vance’s reaction triggered a sparring match with California Rep. Ro Khanna (D).

“Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying ‘Normalize Indian hate’ before this rehire? Just asking for the sake of both our kids,” came the opening salvo of the lawmaker who brought up Vance’s three children with his wife Usha, herself a child of Indian immigrants, when the vice president had come out against WSJ’s Katherine Long.

Shortly after Khanna’s post, the vice president fired back, “For the sake of both of our kids? Grow up. Racist trolls of the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.”

“I cannot overstate how much I loathe this emotional blackmail pretending to be concern,” continued the author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”

“My kids, [God] willing, will be risk takers. They won’t think constantly about whether a flippant comment or a wrong viewpoint will follow them around for the rest of their lives,” expressed Vance. “They will tell stupid jokes. They will develop views that they later think are wrong or even gross. I made mistakes as a kid, and thank God I grew up in a culture that encouraged me to grow and learn and feel remorse when I screwed up and offer grace when others did.”

Musk, who’d called for Long’s termination over publishing Elez’s post after DOGE had exposed the waste at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which she was allegedly tied to, had polled his more than 216 million followers about whether or not the staffer should be brought back.

The vast majority of nearly 400,000 respondents had agreed Elez shouldn’t have had to depart because of “inappropriate statements,” which Vance had agreed with, saying, “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life. We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”

The vice president wasn’t done raking Khanna over the coals as he went on to add, “I don’t worry about my kids making mistakes, or developing views they later regret. I don’t even worry that much about trolls on the internet. You know what I do worry about, Ro? That they’ll grow up to be a US Congressmen who engages in emotional blackmail over a kid’s social media posts.”

“You disgust me,” asserted Vance.

Among the responses from the congressman that had him repeating his case and asserting “I respect Usha (praised her publicly) & defended your family from some of the vicious attacks,” Khanna had attempted to get the last word and posted to X, “Saying I am ‘whiny’ & ‘you disgust me’ maybe your way of showing strength. Personally, I don’t think you have to hurl insults or be mean-spirited to have a free exchange [of] ideas. Our country, at its, best (Lincoln/Douglass) [sic] was not like that and you at your best JD were not either.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump had supported Vance’s stance when asked about it during a press conference, asserting that he was not familiar with the posts but he maintained confidence in his vice president, as did reactions on X.

Kevin Haggerty
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