J.D. Vance's Feud With Conservative Columnist Sparks Backlash Around 2028 Ambitions

J.D. Vance’s feud with a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist is turning into a preview of the fights he may face if he runs for president.

Kimberley A. Strassel, a longtime conservative columnist at the Journal, criticized the vice president last week in a column headlined “President Vance Goes AWOL,” arguing that he was promoting his memoir instead of helping congressional Republicans.

The backlash from Vance’s allies was swift. In a follow-up column published July 23, Strassel accused Vance and his supporters of turning criticism from the right into a loyalty fight.

Strassel’s original complaint centered on Vance’s book tour for Communion, including a nearly three-hour July 14 interview with Joe Rogan in Texas. The appearance came as Republicans were dealing with several high-stakes issues, including negotiations connected to Trump’s war on Iran.

“Congress is crying out for a dedicated White House ambassador — someone who can be trusted to speak for the president, to yea or nay ideas, to shuttle proposals, to wrangle rebels in line,” Strassel wrote. “Mr. Vance is promoting a book.”

Vance’s defenders argued that criticism of his absence was unfair. Podcast host Katie Miller described it as “parental leave,” though Strassel noted her column was written before Vance’s youngest son was born.

In her new column, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, by J.D. Vance,” Strassel said previous Republican targets of her criticism had handled it better.

“Not so Vice President J.D. Vance, and his dreary band of online enforcers,” she wrote, citing what she called his “egotism — or rather, insecurity."

“One answer is simply that Mr. Vance is a sensitive bunny,” she wrote. “If he wants to be president, he’ll need to get over that.”

Strassel said Vance’s press team contacted her editors to “demand corrections” and accused his online allies of responding with “whataboutisms and falsehoods.”

The dispute comes as Vance faces a separate burst of criticism from some voices on the online right over his Iran stance. According to the Washington Post, attacks against Vance increased after his Joe Rogan interview, where he called himself a “reasonable moderate” on Israel policy and accused paid influencers of targeting him dishonestly.

“Well, go to h---,” Vance said on the podcast.

His allies have dismissed the backlash as manufactured, with one unnamed Vance ally telling WSJ it was “obvious to anyone with an IQ above 70” that the pile-on was “totally inauthentic and probably coordinated to a certain extent.”

Vance still leads early 2028 Republican polling, according to the outlet, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio, himself a failed presidential candidate, is gaining ground.