Vice President JD Vance turned the “fat JD” meme that’s “haunted” him for months into a personal and political win by becoming the meme for Halloween and drawing millions of views on social media.
The vice president posted a short video of himself wearing a curly brown wig to mimic the meme as he opens the door of his Naval Observatory residence and says, “Happy Halloween, kids — and remember, say thank you.”
The video then shows a head shot of the 41-year-old vice president spinning in circles to the theme of the Twilight Zone.
It’s a direct send-up of the meme that appeared on social media after a tense White House exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February. Meme creators hit the internet with photos of Vance with exaggerated features and wild hair, pairing it with captions like, “You didn’t say please” or “You didn’t say thank you,” echoing his criticism of the Ukrainian president in that meeting.
Vance’s Halloween clip racked up more than 250,000 likes and 14 million views within hours, Fox News Digital reported, calling it an “extraordinary number for a political post.”
It drew thousands of comments across Instagram, X, and Facebook, with MAGA supporters laughing right along with the vice president.
“HOLY SH*T JD VANCE DID THE MEME. I’M NEVER DELETING,” a supporter called MAGA Voice shouted on X.
Others were already at work, using AI to have the Halloween Vance interacting with an animated version of the meme.
“JD Vance did it,” Benny Johnson said in an X video.
Johnson said that when they were traveling together earlier in the week, the vice president gave the conservative commentator a heads-up that he was going to go as the meme. Johnson pointed out the original meme has been an ongoing viral sensation since it started.
“It’s the most popular and powerful political meme in the world,” Johnson said. “It is without explanation, like most good memes. And it is a perfect ownership of the moment.”
Johnson wrote on X, “He told us he was going to break the internet, and it did.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
