 "Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks to the media on his plane at Philadelphia International Airport, Tuesday, August 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. AP")
United States Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday introduced her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, to supporters at an energetic rally at Temple University in Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia.
During his first speech on Tuesday, Walz roasted his Republican counterpart, JD Vance, by cracking a recent couch bashing that surfaced online last month.
But what’s the truth behind the couch incident? Let’s take a look.
Tim Walz’s joke
On August 6, Democrat VP nominee Tim Walz hit out at JD Vance’s hypocrisy in his 2016 New York Times best-selling memoir.
“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community,” he said.
“That’s not what Middle America is. And I got to tell you. I can’t wait to debate the guy… That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
“See what I did there?” he added, drawing roars of laughter from supporters.
The 60-year-old Minnesota Governor continued the hype as he shared a clip of his zinger on X.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe former US Guard’s remarks received massive reactions on social media, with many poking fun at Vance.
“I almost feel bad for JD Vance. There’s no way to cushion those attacks,” one user wrote.
“Tim Walz is savage,” another one chipped in.
Others were excited about the new competition. A netizen commented, “Coach Walz vs Couch Vance.”
A netizen shared a screenshot of Harris’ face, where she appeared to be stifling her laughter in the background, “Keep it going— don’t stop.”
The couch debacle
It all started with a post on X about a couch.
Within hours of Donald Trump announcing Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate in the upcoming presidential race, a joke popped up on the microblogging platform.
The user of a since-deleted X account wrote last month that Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, included a passage about having sex with an “inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushion.”
The joke, posted on July 15, included a fake citation with page numbers, leading many to believe it was an authentic one.
The joke was further exacerbated by a fact-check article shared by The Associated Press titled, “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch.” The now-retracted article prompted a barrage of memes online.
The news organisation later stated that the article was removed since it had not gone through the standard editing process, as per NPR.
“I did not have sectional relations,” one X user joked, as he paraphrased Bill Clinton’s quote about his extramarital affair.
Another netizen quipped, “Who hasn’t been excited by the thrill of the chaise?”
The couch joke even made it to TV.
“Where does someone even get an idea like that?” Late Show host Stephen Colbert asked during an episode.
The least-liked VP nominee
The couch incident came at a time when many people were wondering if Donald Trump should rethink his running mate decision just three months before the November election.
Vance, formerly a Trump critic, enters the final 90-day stretch of the election season as one of the least-liked running mates since 1980, according to a CNN analysis.
The recent couch backlash is more than just memes online.
In recent weeks, his past comments about a nationwide abortion ban and attacking women without children have drawn massive criticism.
A clip from his 2021 interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently made rounds on the internet. In the clip, he says that America was managed by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
The comment drew widespread criticism, with generally apolitical actor Jennifer Aniston, saying on Instagram, “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to (in vitro fertilisation) as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”
Kamala Harris’ campaign further exacerbated the controversy by stating, “Happy World IVF Day To Everyone Excerpt JD Vance.”
Walz’s ‘weird’ jab on Republicans
Even before he was on the shortlist for vice president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was working to portray Donald Trump and Republicans to the American public as “ just weird .”
“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room,” Walz said in a TV interview last month.
He used the reference at his rally yesterday, saying of Republicans, “These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell.”
Walz’s ability to speak in layman’s terms about policy and politics, coupled with his knowledge of the internet zeitgeist, has helped propel the little-known politician to the national stage and on the “For You” social media pages of millions of Gen Z voters, whose support will be crucial for Democrats.
Labelled “the cool dad” online, news that Walz would be the Democratic running mate ignited a stream of online memes.
One person commented, “To the window to the Walz,” a reference to the hit 2003 rap song Get Low by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz.
On TikTok, users created 60-second montages of Walz talking about the phenomenon of the new Charli XCX album Brat, which he says his young daughter helped explain to him, mixed with footage of him lambasting GOP vice presidential nominee Senator JD Vance for his comments on “childless cat ladies.”
“Go ahead and continue to denigrate people. Go ahead. My God, they went after cat people. Good luck with that,” Walz says in a MSNBC clip that has more than 150,000 likes on TikTok.
“Turn on the internet. See what cat people do when you go after them.”
With inputs from agencies