Vice President JD Vance on Thursday criticized former MSNBC host Joy Reid, saying she would be a “much happier person” if she “showed a little gratitude.”
Vance made the comments in response to a resurfaced video of Reid speaking with activist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates in New Orleans in March.
The video was widely shared across social media platforms this week.
In the conversation with Coates, Reid described her family’s background and her mother’s experiences after immigrating to the United States.
Reid said, “my father was from the Congo and my mother was from Guyana and so like, they were the immigrants who came here on purpose and then they got the rude awakening, my mother got the rude awakening, like, oh, it’s racist here.”
She continued, “she’s like, they didn’t tell me this is the land of opportunity, but not for me.”
Vance responded sharply to those comments.
Writing on social media, he said, “Joy Reid has had such a good life in this country. It’s been overwhelmingly kind and gracious to her. She is far wealthier than most. Yet she oozes with contempt.”
“My honest, non-trolling advice to Joy Reid is that you’d be a much happier person if you showed a little gratitude.”
The vice president’s remarks quickly circulated online, drawing attention to his criticism of Reid’s portrayal of her mother’s struggles and the larger theme of racism in America.
They also sparked a flood of memes in the comment section of his post.
WATCH:
This is not the first time Vance has directly addressed Reid’s commentary.
In late September, Reid made comments about his admission to Yale Law School during an appearance on former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s podcast.
“Maybe the way that JD Vance got into Yale is because they were tired of just letting in white men from New York … from all the elite schools, and they wanted an Appalachian white,” Reid said during the episode.
“That’s how that man got into Yale, I promise you.”
She continued, “that’s also affirmative action and DEI.”
Following her statements, Vance posted a meme of his own face in apparent response, signaling his awareness of Reid’s claims and mocking the suggestion that his admission was tied to diversity initiatives.
“Perhaps the best social media post ever,” one Vance supporter would soon say.
Border czar Tom Homan fired back at Reid during an appearance on Fox News back in January, dismissing her remarks on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Reid had referred to the ICE raids as “performative,” leading Attorney General Letitia James, who was a guest on the program, to call the enforcement actions “reckless.”
Homan, not holding back, responded: “She’s dumber than a box of rocks.”
“What ICE did in Chicago is saved children. What we did in New York today is save children.”
“Just in Chicago alone, we arrested at least nine s*xual predators, most of them child s*x predators. We took them off the street,” Homan added during his discussion with Fox’s Jesse Waters.
