Vice-President JD Vance was met with a wall of stony silence at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach on Wednesday, 1 July, after an attempt to leverage former President Joe Biden's history of public stumbles for a laugh failed to resonate with the gathered service members.
The Vice President, 41, was addressing an event marking 250 years of the American military when he attempted to pivot from a self-deprecating comment about his own fear of slipping down the steps of Air Force Two into a partisan jab at his predecessor. The line, intended to highlight conservative grievances about media double standards, led to an uncomfortable pause that has since sparked a viral backlash across social media platforms.
