Fact Check: The Sick Story About JD Vance and a Couch Is a Leftist Lie
On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly tapped running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, turned some heads with a joke about Sen. J.D. Vance.
“I gotta tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy. That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz said at a Philadelphia rally. “Did you see what I did there?”
Walz’s joke was in reference to a salacious story about Vance that previously went viral on social media.
The story claimed that Sen. Vance wrote about having sexual relations with a couch sometime in his youth.
As it turns out, however, the story is completely unfounded.
CLAIM:
- Did Sen. JD Vance write about having relations with a couch in his best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy“?
CONCLUSION:
- Absolutely not. The claim now being spread by Democrats appears to have been made up by random users on social media.
- The Democrat-pushed rumor appears to be part of a larger coordinated effort between Democrats and the media to frame the Trump-Vance ticket as “weird.”
The claim appears to have been originated by an X user with the username @rickrudescalves.
The random user posted a message claiming Vance wrote about using a “latex glove shoved between two couch cushions” to simulate sex.
However, as noted by multiple outlets including Snopes and NPR, the claim is flat-out false.
The truth hasn’t stopped prominent political opponents from using the lie to attempt to slander Vance; Walz is far from the only Democrat to spread the unfounded claim.
According to Business Insider several Democrats and sitting lawmakers have joined in spreading the falsehood.
The Harris campaign even trotted out the lie in a July 27 jab on X.
JD Vance does not couch his hatred for women pic.twitter.com/sGfZBpT5YF
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 28, 2024
“JD Vance does not couch his hatred for women,” a post from an official Harris campaign X account read.
The originator of the claim is certainly happy with how widespread liberals have helped spread its reach.
The unnamed man reportedly told Business Insider, he’s “really enjoyed thinking about [Vance’s] team and all of the idiots associated with him having to grapple with this.”
The falsehood seems to fall in line with recent media-Democratic efforts to frame the Trump-Vance ticket as “weird.”
Conservative critics counter this by saying such tactics are merely projections.
To those conservative’s point, many of the liberals pushing the “weird” narrative believe men should compete in women’s sports, pornographic “queer” books should be held in school libraries, and minors under the age of consent should be subject to life-altering sex change procedures.
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