ALBURTIS, Pa. – Vice President JD Vance responded Tuesday to explosive remarks by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who described him as “a conspiracy theorist for a decade” in a series of interviews with Vanity Fair.
Rather than denying the characterization, the Cincinnati Republican embraced it—claiming his so-called conspiracy theories were simply truths the media took months to acknowledge.
“Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” Vance told reporters at an appearance outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, when asked about Wiles’ comments.
The vice president then rattled off examples he described as vindicated conspiracy theories, starting with COVID-19 policies.
“I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we should actually let them develop some language skills,” Vance said.
His claim appears to reference debates over mask mandates for young children during the pandemic. However, major health organizations including the World Health Organization recommended that children aged 5 years and under generally did not need to wear masks, while the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended masks only for children 2 years and older. The debate centered on slightly older children, not three-year-olds specifically.
Vance then turned to President Joe Biden’s fitness for office. “I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job,” he said.
After Biden’s poor debate performance in June 2024, some White House reporters acknowledged they wished they had pushed harder to tell the story about Biden’s age and limitations. Following the debate, media outlets reported on efforts that had been made to manage and conceal Biden’s age- and health-related limitations during his presidency, and Biden ultimately withdrew from the race in July 2024.
Finally, Vance claimed: “I believed in the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail rather than win an argument against his political opponents.”
The claim oversimplifies a complex situation.
While Trump made numerous suggestions, requests and demands to jail, arrest, investigate or prosecute his political opponents after returning to office, and used the Justice Department to punish enemies while making unfounded claims of prior “weaponization” against him, the prosecutions of Trump during Biden’s presidency were led by independent prosecutors.
Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized maintaining the DOJ’s independence from politicians and political considerations and elevating post-Watergate rules and norms. Biden himself stated publicly that subjects of the Jan. 6 Select Committee’s investigation should face prosecution for defying subpoenas, later saying that comment was “inappropriate,” but there’s no evidence that Biden directed the federal cases against Trump.
Vance concluded his response with a quip: “At least on some of these conspiracy theories, it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it.”
The vice president also defended Wiles despite her critical comments, praising her loyalty to President Trump. “I’ve never seen Susie Wiles say something to the President and then go and counteract him or subvert HIS WILL behind the scenes,” Vance said. “And that’s what you wanted, a staffer.”
Wiles’ Vanity Fair interviews included other pointed remarks about Trump administration figures. She said Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality,” described Elon Musk as “an odd, odd duck” and “an avowed ketamine” user, and said Attorney General Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” the handling of the Epstein files.
Vance ended his remarks with a lesson learned: “If any of us have learned a lesson from that Vanity Fair article. I hope that the lesson is we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.”
JD Vance embraces ‘conspiracy theorist’ label: “I only believe the ones that are true”
