People who are fans of Donald Trump frequently praise him for how funny he is. Trump’s detractors usually see less humor, although they can sometimes laugh at him, or observe the absurdity of the things he says and does, or the mere fact that he’s the president in the first place.
JD Vance, Trump’s vice president and potential successor, does not appear to have that same talent for humor.
On Thursday morning, Trump, despite threatening possibly imminent war with Iran, held a meeting of the Board of Peace.
At that event, Vance got up and spoke, and told a joke that bombed spectacularly:
JD Vance takes the mic and immediately attempts to tell a joke. He doesn’t get a single laugh. Not. Even. One. pic.twitter.com/SmqLpxb8aC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 19, 2026
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“I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but then after the president said that I was so smart, I didn’t want to repeat our Congresswoman, who froze for 20 seconds over in Munich,” Vance said, to not a single laugh in the entire room. He then opted to talk through his punchline, stating, “maybe they’ll say nice things about me like they did Congresswoman Cortez.”
Vance was telling a joke about an answer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gave at the recent Munich Security Conference, when she was asked whether the U.S. should defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. It’s a scenario that may very well come to pass, and would possibly put the U.S. in the terrible position of either letting Taiwan be conquered or getting into a protracted shooting war with China.
AOC stumbled over her words for a few seconds, although she didn’t “freeze,” and it certainly wasn’t for 20 seconds. And many American politicians over the years, including presidents, have had trouble coming up with the right answer when it comes to Taiwan.
Apparently, we’re all supposed to accept that AOC fumbled an answer on Taiwan in Munich and that’s BAD.
Meanwhile, this is the current US Commander-in-Chief: https://t.co/U0ObY6LZ4X
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 17, 2026
At any rate, it appears that most of the people in the room either didn’t understand Vance’s AOC reference, or didn’t think he delivered the joke in a way that was particularly worthy of a laugh.
Ironically, AOC and Vance are both possible presidential candidates in 2028, and there’s a chance the two could end up against each other on the debate stage.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
