J.D. Vance getting into a heated back-and-forth with reporters on social media is a good thing for the country ... so says one of the journalists who sparred with the Vice President online.
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00:00Tell us about this. Obviously, a lot of people were talking about this case last night on social media.
00:08You, as a senior legal affairs reporter, had some opinions about it.
00:12And then you end up in a back-and-forth with J.D. Vance. How did that happen?
00:18It wasn't how I planned to start my morning.
00:21But, look, I mean, this is actually a more complicated and nuanced case than I think it's been presented,
00:26even than Congressman Raskin presented it.
00:29This man who came to the United States six years ago was actually found by an immigration judge
00:36to have a potential link to a foreign gang, to MS-13, at the time.
00:44But the same judge said, we can't deport him back to El Salvador because he's at risk of being persecuted there.
00:52What J.D. Vance said is, why are people portraying this guy as totally innocent, totally in the clear,
00:57when this judge said he might be connected to a gang?
01:01But what J.D. Vance said was he was a convicted gang member.
01:04And what I said was, whoa, hold on.
01:06If you look at the filings themselves, which is what J.D. Vance recommended,
01:09they never say he was convicted of a crime.
01:11This man was not convicted of a crime.
01:13He was denied bond when he first arrived to the country because of his potential ties to this gang.
01:20And that's an important distinction legally.
01:22Also, I think it's just interesting to note, which isn't necessarily the heart of this case,
01:26but just the fact that it's happening, that a sitting vice president of the United States
01:31is on X responding to people in real time.
01:36There is no way that you could imagine Kamala Harris at night doing this,
01:40or Joe Biden, or Mike Pence, or some of the other vice presidents.
01:43But now we've got a millennial vice president who was very online,
01:47which is why Donald Trump Jr. liked him in the first place.
01:50And now he's literally doing that as vice president.
01:53As you said, that may be a positive thing.
01:55In fact, I think it is a positive thing.
01:57I think the more we can break out of the sort of totally scripted,
02:00formulaic version of Washington, the better.
02:04And in fact, the exchange we had, I think he acknowledged making an error originally,
02:09saying this guy was originally released under the Biden administration,
02:12and it was actually the first Trump administration.
02:14And J.D. Vance corrected that and fixed it, and a lot of people piled on him for that.
02:19But in my view, I appreciate that.
02:22I'm glad he's reading what I'm putting out there, and if he wants to call it out, that's fine,
02:25and let's have a debate about the facts, or a discussion about the facts at least.
02:30And so I'm glad he's engaging, and I hope he continues to engage that way.