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Vice President JD Vance gave the middle finger while he was ranting about his critics during a Republican dinner in Ohio.
Vance, a former Ohio senator invited to speak at Tuesday’s dinner, complained about "pink-haired people" — a tired pejorative used to describe anyone liberals and progressives — he claims approach him in public and flip him the bird.
He then tried to make a joke.
“I know it’s not always easy to be a political candidate, trust me. In Washington, D.C. they have this thing, I think it means we’re number one in Washington, D.C.,” said Vance, flipping off the crowd.
“But all the pink-haired people throw up this sign and I think that means we’re number one, right?” he said. “I choose to take that as that symbol in Washington.”
Vance's weird moment came after President Donald Trump offered his own expletive-laden rant about missile strikes between Israel and Iran.
Trump authorized a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities on Saturday, backing Israel as it escalates against Iran. When reporters asked him what what going to happen next in the conflict, Trump seemed frustrated.
"We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing," he told reporters as he left the White House early Tuesday morning.
Vance mentioned the bombing during his speech, claiming that U.S. military assets destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities — though other reports suggest the strikes only damaged them.
On Wednesday, the president doubled down on his claims that the facilities were “obliterated” despite a U.S. intelligence assessment that says the attack only inflicted enough damage to set back Iran’s nuclear facilities by only a few months.
“Not only did we destroy the Iranian nuclear program, we did it with zero American casualties," Vance told the crowd in Ohio.
He also revealed during his speech that he had no idea Trump was going to make him his running mate until the morning of the Republican National Convention last July.
“It was the first time I had ever talked with him explicitly about becoming his running mate,” Vance explained.
“And he said, ‘You know, I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but it’s probably going to be you, so go have fun the next couple of days,’" Vance said. "How do you have fun the next couple of days? When that’s what the president tells you?"
Vance also said that on the day of the convention he missed an early morning phone call from Trump while he and his family were moving through airport security and getting set up in their hotel in Milwaukee.
“So I call him back 15 minutes later, and he answers the phone and he says, ‘JD, you just missed a very important phone call.’ I said, ‘Yes, yes, Mr. President,’ and he said, ‘I’m gonna have to select somebody else now,’” Vance recalled.
“And of course, you know, my heart stops, and I think he’s actually gonna do it, but then he asks me to be his running mate,” he said. “He actually talks to my son, and, you know, the rest is history, right?”
