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‘Make Them Pay’: JD Vance Says ‘Destroy’ Those Who Oppose Values That Make America Great
In a fascistic, nationalistic, and anti-“woke” speech to a right-wing pro-MAGA think tank in 2021, JD Vance decreed the conservative movement should destroy those who are “fighting the values and virtues that make this country great.”
Vance’s remarks to the Claremont Institute were unearthed Thursday by The Christian Science Monitor, which reported on his views about Amazon supporting Black Lives Matter, and companies that are pro-choice.
But his full 21-minute speech (video below, full published text here), which he delivered just two months before launching his successful U.S. Senate campaign, is much more broad and ideologically-driven. In it, he attacks globalization, Critical Race Theory (CRT), the Black Lives Matter movement, and the “digitalization of the American economy.”
In it, Vance, now the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee, alleges ideas that progressive institutions promote are the cause of America’s ills, and decrees the power those institutions have over society should be negated – or they should be destroyed.
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“One of the biggest capital allocators in the world is that woke social justice hedge fund known as Harvard University, which has over $120 billion under management, which funds some of the most destructive ideologies all across our country, which literally trains the next generation of priests in the woke seminary that’s dominating our professional class,” Vance told the audience listening to his speech, “Fighting Woke Capital.”
After targeting institutions that he says are “woke social justice hedge fund[s],” like Harvard University, and the Ford Foundation, which allocate “woke capital,” Vance says, “I think there are some obvious solutions, and it should start from a fundamental premise that if you are fighting the American nation state, if you are fighting the values and virtues that make this country great, the conservative movement should be about nothing if not reducing your power, and if necessary, destroying you.”
In his remarks Vance does not appear to differentiate between institutions and the people who run them.
“We cannot let the people who are driving this country into the ground continue to benefit from special benefits,” Vance says, “from tax breaks, from subsidies, or from liability protections. That is the simple rule that we should follow. Harvard University’s $120 billion endowment is ammunition for our enemies, and we can’t let the enemy have that much ammunition or we’re going to lose. It’s that simple. This principle should guide all of our policies. If you cannot go after the pocketbook of these people, if you cannot make them pay, then you are accepting defeat. It’s that simple. We’re never going to beat them unless we go after them.”
READ MORE: ‘My Wife Had This Baby’: JD Vance Trounced for ‘Misogynistic’ Views on Women and Family
“We should eliminate all of the special privileges that exist for our non-profit foundation class,” Vance, who ran an unsuccessful nonprofit, adds. “If you’re spending all your money to teach racism to our children in their schools, why do we give you special tax breaks instead of taxing you more? When Biden raises taxes, the rich won’t pay the brunt of this. They’ll give money to their foundations, which will use it to push their progressive agenda. They’ll be saved from the consequence of the tax increase even as it will empower institutions that hate us. We need to stop that. The decision to give those foundations and those organizations special privileges is a decision made by public policy. We need better public policy, and a willingness to actually go after the institutions that are trying to destroy the American way of life.”
Commenting on Vance’s speech in 2021, Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce warned: “Fascism doesn’t die just because it loses an election here and there. Here it comes, America. Be ready. Because J.D. Vance knows what’s good for you.”
Watch Vance’s full speech below or at this link.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
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