Vice President J.D. Vance reportedly called an interviewer an “asshole” after being referred to as an “intellectual” at a black-tie event in Washington, D.C., Tuesday evening.
The event was hosted by the conservative think tank American Compass, where founder Oren Cass interviewed Vance on stage. In his introduction, Cass referenced Vance’s pre-White House career as a writer for National Review and described him as an intellectual “in the good sense of the term.”
“I come here and you insult me,” Vance replied jokingly. “And you call me ‘an intellectual,’ remind me that I wrote for the National Review. What an asshole this guy is!”
Cass responded as the audience clapped: “That’s fair. I will admit that I, too, wrote for National Review.”
The magazine leans conservative but is no friend of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement although several of the president’s policies align with those embraced by the publication for years.
Watch:
JD Vance: “I come here for free and you insult me. You call me an intellectual, remind me that I wrote for National Review — what an a**hole this guy is!”pic.twitter.com/U6cKhAF0SU
— (news) DOGE (@DOGE__news) June 4, 2025
Last month, Vance made headlines when he criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’ statement that the judiciary’s role is to serve as a check on the executive branch, calling it a “profoundly wrong sentiment,” adding that courts should be “deferential” to the president, especially in matters related to immigration policy.
“I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment. That’s one half of his job, the other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch. And you cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they’re not allowed to have what they voted for,” Vance told New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat on the “Interesting Times” podcast earlier this week.
Vance responded to Roberts’ remarks during an event in Buffalo, New York, where the chief justice emphasized the importance of judicial independence.
“The judiciary is a coequal branch of government, separate from the others with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law, and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president,” Roberts said at the event.
Roberts added that the Judicial Branch’s role is to “decide cases but, in the course of that, check the excesses of Congress or of the Executive and that does require a degree of independence.”
Though the vice president said he thinks the administration has “an obligation to treat people humanely,” he also believes it’s an “open question” how much due process is “due” to undocumented immigrants.
“I’ve obviously expressed public frustration on this, which is yes, illegal immigrants, by virtue of being in the United States, are entitled to some due process,” Vance said. “But the amount of process that is due and how you enforce those legislative standards and how you actually bring them to bear is, I think, very much an open question.”
Vance’s remarks came after the Supreme Court halted President Donald Trump from deporting a group of immigrants in northern Texas under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Douthat asked Vance about the administration’s justification for using those authorities to mass deport people in the country illegally. The VP conceded that “we don’t have 5 million uniform combatants,” but he did mention thousands of migrants who “intentionally came to the United States to cause violence.”
“I think that the courts need to be somewhat deferential. In fact, I think the design is that they should be extremely deferential to these questions of political judgment made by the people’s elected president of the United States,” Vance added.
