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JD Vance, who is married to an Indian-American wife, has tried to distance himself from far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and her racist slur about Kamala Harris.
Controversial Trump crony Loomer has faced backlash in recent weeks after she shared a post on X claiming that the White House “will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if Harris wins the election in November – an obviously racist reference to the vice president’s Indian heritage.
The conspiracy theorist later deleted the message, but has aggressively fought back against members of both parties who called it a racist remark.
It was a surprising remark in particular given that Trump’s own running mate JD Vance is married to an Indian-American, Usha Vance, who was featured onstage alongside her husband at the Republican convention in July.
Usha Vance has largely remained out of the political spotlight but has increasingly found herself in the public eye nontheless as her husband’s political star ascends and as many question her views on the statements her husband and his running mate have made about immigrants and women.
Vance, for the first time, responded specifically to Loomer’s remark in an interview Sunday with Meet the Press as he completed a multi-network tour to address the spiraling clamor over Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants and his ties to Loomer.
“I don’t like those comments,” Vance told Welker, but added that he doesn’t “look at the internet for every single thing to get offended by”.
“What Laura said about Kamala Harris is not what we should be focused on. We should be focused on the policy and on the issues,” added Vance.
The Ohio senator then added: “I make a mean chicken curry. I don’t think that it’s insulting for anybody to talk about their dietary preferences or what they want to do in the White House.”
His comments come as Trump’s vulnerability to sycophancy is once again causing problems for everyone in his immediate vicinity.
Fresh out of his first and perhaps only debate with Harris, the former president was hoping to be passing the mid-September mark with his opponent’s days of positive momentum clearly in the rear-view mirror.
Instead, he is limping out of his showdown with the vice president in Philadelphia with a series of new controversies including a conspiracy about Haitian migrants eating pets and questions about Loomer being by his side.
Loomer, a far-right activist with a history of making racist comments and palling around with neo-Nazis, was spotted coming off the ex-president’s plane as he arrived in Philadelphia for the debate — in the days following, she has caused her own firestorm of controversy as Republicans and Democrats alike question why Trump is hanging around with her.
On Sunday, Vance insisted that Loomer is “not affiliated with the Trump campaign” – echoing his running mate’s comments in a Truth Social post days earlier.
He also went on to parry questions about his claim that his constituents in Ohio were contacting his office and insisting that they’d seen Haitian migrants stealing pets off the street — a bizarre claim on its face and one that the Trump campaign has yet to back up with evidence of any form, including statements from local law enforcement groups.
WATCH: Far-right activist Laura Loomer said in a social media post that the “White House will smell like curry” if Kamala Harris wins.@JDVance responds: “I make a mean chicken curry.”@kwelkernbc: “Were you and your wife offended?”
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 15, 2024
Vance: “I don’t like those comments.” pic.twitter.com/GtHDbLluF8
Trump, during the debate, loudly declared “they’re eating the dogs!” as he rambled on about the influx of Haitian migrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a legal US immigrant designation, and wrongly accused such communities of being in the US illegally.
In the days following, Springfield, Ohio — the target of Trump’s viral claim — has seen multiple threats of mass violence made to city institutions, including Wittenberg University which announced late Saturday evening that a credible threat had forced the closure of all campus events on Sunday.
Vance, Ohio’s junior senator, has only represented the state since 2023.
Ohio’s Republican governor and a number of local elected officials and law enforcement agencies have roundly refuted the claims being spread by the Trump-Vance campaign, but to little avail.
