Donald Trump, JD Vance 'Playing Defense' in Less Than a Week—Ex-GOP Staffer

Former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer said on MSNBC's The Weekend on Saturday morning that former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, are "playing defense" in less than a week since Vice President Kamala Harris was tapped as the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

Last Sunday, President Joe Biden dropped out the of race following weeks of interparty fighting among Democrats on whether he should pass the torch after his debate fiasco against Trump last month. Biden also endorsed Harris that day, starting a flood of pro-Harris memes on TikTok, over $100 million worth of donations, and 170,000 campaign volunteers.

Reports have emerged of Trump second-guessing his choice of Vance amid the senator being met with bad press. Trump's campaign and even Trump himself have denied such reports.

"The country, the voters, the democratic base is reinvigorated and that's evidenced by what we've seen since last Sunday. It hasn't even been a week," Setmayer—CEO and co-founder of The Seneca Project, a bipartisan super PAC that focuses on women's issues and has endorsed Harris—told the co-hosts of The Weekend on Saturday. "In this timeframe, we've got Donald Trump and MAGA [Make American Great Again] and JD Vance playing defense. They're talking about couches and cat ladies."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment on Saturday morning.

Vance received a lot of heat when a video from a July 2021 appearance on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight resurfaced this week.

As a U.S. Senate candidate, Vance told Carlson: "We're effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, 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."

He continued: "And it's just a basic fact, you look at Kamala Harris, [Transportation Secretary] Pete Buttigieg, AOC [Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children, and how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"

In response to the recent backlash Vance has faced, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said in a statement obtained by Newsweek on Friday morning, "Once again, the leftwing media have twisted Senator Vance's words and spun up a false narrative about his position on the issues. The Democrats are in complete disarray with the most unpopular Vice President in history as their party's nominee. The only childlessness we should be talking about are the childless parents who lost their kids to the murderous thugs and deadly fentanyl coming across Kamala's southern border."

In 2021, Biden tasked Harris with leading the administration's diplomacy with Central American countries—El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—to address the "root causes" of migration. However, she never was in charge of border security.

Meanwhile, Vance's older sister, Lindsay Lewis, said in a statement that Newsweek obtained from the senator's press office on Friday morning, "JD was raised by some of the strongest women I know and went on to marry an incredibly strong woman in Usha. JD is a testament to the women in his life, and the attacks from the media and Democrats that assume anything otherwise is vile."

Vance also faced unsubstantiated claims circulating online this week that alleged he had sex with a couch. The rumor stemmed from a troll post that used Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, as its basis.

"I say it's a pretty great week for the Democrats. They need to maintain this," Setmayer said. "Now at the top of the ticket, it becomes even more apparent the difference, the contrast between the vision that Donald Trump, JD Vance and MAGA has versus the forward-thinking positive, empowering vision that Kamala Harris has, and women have had enough. And I think that we're going to be the ones that save this democracy."

When asked by Newsweek on Saturday morning if it would hurt Harris' campaign if Trump replaced Vance with a new running mate, Setmayer said: "Regardless of who replaced JD Vance, the core issue remains unchanged."

She continued: "Trump's long history of mistreatment of women, not to mention his adjudicated sexual abuse case, highlights a broader pattern of his sexism. Misogyny is part of MAGA's brand, no matter how much they try to gaslight women to the contrary. More and more women, across party lines, are fed up with it. Trump's candidacy has a suburban woman problem, and they know it. Now, with Harris at the top of the ticket, the contrast couldn't be more stark."

The former president was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. He has been ordered to pay nearly $90 million after Carroll sued him twice for defamation after denying her allegations of sexual assault. Trump has appealed both cases and maintains his innocence.

Meanwhile, Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, denied reports that Trump was regretting picking Vance as his running in a statement to Newsweek on Tuesday.

"President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either nonexistent sources or individuals who have no idea what's going on," Cheung said. "Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy."

The former president, meanwhile, stood by Vance while appearing for a phone interview on Fox & Friends on Thursday. During the interview with Fox News' Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, Brian Kilmeade and Lawrence Jones, Trump called the senator "fantastic" and said "it wouldn't have mattered" if Harris was tapped before he announced his running mate.

Update 7/27/24, 1:26 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Lewis.