Vance makes conspiratorial remarks about Israel. Trump’s non-answer to the question: who won in 2020?

The Vice-President of the United States, J. D. Vance, was a guest on Joe Rogan’s show – in other words, he received the most coveted invitation of all, because there is no one quite like Rogan; his podcast is the most popular of them all, where political careers are made and unmade and the pulse of Trumpism is taken – and he decided to make the most of it in a way that appeals to the host and his audience: by peddling conspiracy theories. And what is the favourite topic of Vance, this isolationist pacifist who, in the last week, has seen his cherished memorandum of understanding with Iran go up in smoke and has also seen his boss, Donald Trump, tone down his contempt for the Ukrainians? Israel, of course. In two different guises. Many believe that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent, says Rogan, reviving one of the theories about the paedophile financier who took his own life in prison years ago. 

“Yes,” says Vance, “the Mossad or the CIA or some other ‘deep state’ entity, in America or in Israel. Clearly, Epstein had links to the highest echelons of American intelligence, and clearly he had links to the highest echelons of Israeli intelligence.” Vance then states that there are no documents proving these links and admits that the Epstein affair was certainly not handled well by the Trump administration, but he deliberately leaves the idea of the ‘deep state’ hanging in the air, because that is how conspiracy theories, doubts, insinuations and manipulation are fuelled. And also victimhood, the hallmark of Trumpism: ‘I am the target of a propaganda campaign funded by Israel,’ said the US Vice-President, ‘because of my commitment to peace with Iran.’ Vance cited an article in Time magazine which reported that certain American influencers had been paid to attack the deal with Iran (which has since been scrapped by his boss) and that the funds came from the Israeli government: “My response? ‘Well, go to hell,’ said Vance, offended and touchy, who, needing to make up for these last ten dreadful days, has done what he now considers most popular: stoking resentment towards Israel, to position himself as the voice not only of the isolationist electorate, but also of those who believe it was the Israelis who dragged America into war.”

Whilst Vance’s rhetoric against Israel is unprecedented and unheard of for a member of the US government – all the more so for a Republican – there is one narrative that forms the founding myth of Donald Trump’s second, brutal term in office and which defies time, reality and any sense of the ridiculous: that of Democratic Party electoral fraud in the 2020 elections, the "big lie", the presidential victory stolen from Trump by the impostor Joe Biden. On Wednesday, Senate confirmation hearings were held for Jay Clayton’s nomination as Director of National Intelligence, replacing the resigning-sacked Tulsi Gabbard. A lawyer and former SEC chairman, Clayton had not prepared very well for this testimony; he was unable to answer technical questions, is unfamiliar with the details of the matters he will have to deal with, and is banking on the fact that the numbers are in his favour and that his appointment is almost certain, because rebellions within the Republican Party are very rare and do not concern appointments. However, there is one question Clayton refused to answer – and it is a simple one, posed to him by every Democratic senator on the committee: who won the 2020 election? Nothing – there was no getting round it – he didn’t answer; he said, ‘I don’t want to go down that road’; he fell silent; he looked imploringly at the committee chair, the Republican Tom Cotton, who occasionally came to his aid by telling the senator speaking: ‘Your time is up.’ Clayton did not reply – a heroic act, because Trump judges the loyalty of his supporters partly on their resilience in defending the ‘big lie’ conspiracy theory – and it’s not as though a Trump supporter would go that far, all the way to the possibility of heading US intelligence, only to then backtrack on the founding myth. The stoic Clayton refuses to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia – a rising star of the party who speaks clearly, eloquently and incisively – said to the nominee, after asking at least ten times, ‘Who won in 2020?’, ‘You refuse to answer a basic question like this, yet you’re asking to lead the US intelligence community. Isn’t it humiliating not to be able to answer this question? To have to go along with the president’s delusions?”