Video Does Not Present JD Vance Endorsing Challenge 2025

On Sept. 16, 2024, claims unfold on social media {that a} video confirmed U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio — former President Donald Trump’s vice-presidential operating mate within the November 2024 election — endorsing Project 2025, a conservative coalition’s plan for a future Republican administration. 

“JD Vance endorses Challenge 2025,” @KamalaHQ, an X account selling Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential marketing campaign, captioned it, reaching greater than 4 million views as of this writing. 

“BREAKING: In a shocking new leak, JD Vance utterly endorses Challenge 2025. Donald Trump cannot run from this now. Retweet so all People see this,” learn a similar post from the @harris_wins X account, which describes itself as “the most important on-line group supporting quickly to be President Kamala Harris.” 

Whereas the video in query was genuine — i.e., real and unmanipulated — the claims accompanying it weren’t. The clip was recorded in 2021 and doesn’t present Vance endorsing and even mentioning Challenge 2025, which didn’t exist on the time. Due to this fact, we now have rated this video as being miscaptioned.

Snopes reached out to Harris’ marketing campaign for a remark and can replace this report if we obtain a response.

The video clip got here from an interview Vance gave to The Federalist, uploaded to YouTube on Could 18, 2021 (the related portion begins across the 25:48 mark):

Here is a transcription of the related a part of the interview:

Vance: I believe the factor we now have to remove from the final 10 years is that we actually should be actually ruthless in terms of the train of energy. I used to be speaking about this with somebody earlier in the present day, the place, you keep in mind there was some menace that Congressional or Senate Republicans made: “Should you do away with the filibuster, we will do X, Y and Z.” However whenever you really have a look at it, it is like, effectively, that is— this isn’t that fascinating.

[…]

Vance: That is the menace? Should you do away with the filibuster, we’re gonna do that stuff? Like, they’re speaking about increasing the Supreme Court docket, they’re speaking about including, you recognize, two senators from closely Democratic locations.

[…]

Vance: So I believe — I imply, look, I’m a cynic about this and possibly even slightly little bit of a pessimist — however I believe the problem confronting American conservatives is that we now have misplaced each main highly effective establishment within the nation, apart from possibly church buildings and non secular establishments, which in fact are weaker now than they’ve ever been. We have misplaced large enterprise, we have misplaced finance, we have misplaced the tradition, we have misplaced the academy. And if we will really actually impact actual change within the nation, it’s going to require us utterly changing the prevailing ruling class with one other ruling class.

I say that realizing — and listening to myself — it sounds actually exhausting. It’s actually exhausting. However I do not assume there’s like a détente with these folks. I do not assume there’s type of a compromise that we will include the individuals who at present really management the nation. Except we overthrow them not directly, we will hold dropping. And that is the problem.

Not solely did Vance fail to say Challenge 2025 within the interview, however it might have been not possible for him to take action, because the initiative wasn’t announced till April 2022. Furthermore, the Challenge 2025 doc titled “Mandate for Management 2025: The Conservative Promise,” which particulars the venture’s agenda for a conservative authorities, was not printed till April 2023. The video displays Vance’s broader commentary on political energy dynamics, not a public endorsement of a selected written agenda.

In response to the political fact-checking web site PolitiFact, the Harris marketing campaign “mentioned the video confirmed Vance voicing assist for insurance policies just like these promoted in Challenge 2025” when requested for proof to assist its declare that Vance endorsed Challenge 2025. It additionally cited Vance’s affiliations with of Challenge 2025’s contributors.

For additional studying, we suggest our detailed article titled “What’s Project 2025? Unpacking the Pro-Trump Plan to Overhaul US Government.”

Sources