Donald Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, was confronted by CNN host John Berman Friday morning for posting a video of former South Carolina beauty queen Caitlin Upton struggling to answer a question and comparing her performance to Kamala Harris ahead of her CNN interview Thursday night, Mediaite reported.
In his post, the GOP vice presidential candidate mockingly wrote, “BREAKING: I have gotten ahold [sic] of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview,” attaching a 2007 video of Upton, then 18, that has long served as fodder for mockery on the internet.
When Berman informed Vance that the negative attention Upton initially received from the video had pushed her to become “very, very depressed” and considered "suicide," as she revealed in a 2015 New York Magazine interview, Vance said he didn't know and pivoted to admitting that he has sometimes messed up.
However, his tone soon shifted as he doubled down on his ridicule, downplaying the information he was provided about Upton’s mental health and defending the need to “have some fun,” saying politics has turned “lame.”
At the same time, Vance said that people should focus less on his meme — of a woman being made into a joke — and instead focus on how some families can’t afford groceries.
“There’s nothing that says that we can’t tell some jokes along the way while we deal with the very serious business of bringing back our public policy,” Vance asserted.
Berman followed up: “I just want to be clear, though. You said you didn’t know. Would you like to apologize to Caitlin Upton for posting that up there last night, given what you’ve now learned?”
Vance declined. “John, I’m not going to apologize for posting a joke," he said, "but I wish the best for Caitlin.”
